Local heroes transforming healthcare in regional South Australia
Sobia and Irfan Hashmi have devoted their lives to ensuring that regional South Australian communities have access to pharmacies.
Sobia and Irfan say that when they landed in regional South Australia 20 years ago, the lack of adequate health care services for rural and remote communities was the first thing they noticed.
To counter this problem, the couple have established six pharmacies in areas where there were previously none to bring essential healthcare closer to communities that would otherwise be without.
The necessity of their work points to an alarming status quo.
The National Rural Health Alliance’s latest ‘Rural Health in Australia Snapshot’ reveals that nearly 18,500 people in Australia – just under the entire population of Murray Bridge – have no access to essential primary healthcare services within an hour’s drive. The snapshot also finds that Australians die from potentially avoidable causes at higher rates the further away they reside from major cities.
SA Health reports that South Australians living in rural and remote areas face significant health disparities, which directly translate to poorer health outcomes compared to metropolitan residents, with access to services being an enduring concern despite government intervention.
Irfan says that the challenges facing regional South Australians in accessing healthcare are numerous.
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“GPs are overly busy, and for small appointments…patients or consumers need to wait at least a week, or maybe two weeks, just for that referral,” he says.
“Also, when they need to see a specialist, they need to travel to bigger cities like Port Augusta or Port Pirie or even Adelaide. So that’s another challenge that I know.”
He says that pharmacies like his are a crucial cornerstone in addressing the existing inequities.
“We started some services like instant script, which is a doctor available over the phone, and they can help that patient then and there. Within an hour, an appointment can be arranged,” Irfan says.
“Vaccines are something which pharmacists can take care of, which offloads that burden from GPs, and includes the National Immunisation Program.
“Some prescriptions, pharmacists can initiate…the approval was given last year, that pharmacists, who are trained, can prescribe and dispense medicines.”
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Alongside challenges in healthcare access, workforce shortages remain a critical and persistent concern in the regions, but skilled migrants offer a solution.
“When I came to Australia in 2003, pharmacy owners were really looking to hire anyone from overseas. And still today, same scenario,” Irfan says.
Influenced by their own migration experience, the pair have also been committed to bridging the gap between overseas talent and regional pharmacies, supporting newly arrived migrants on the ground to navigate the challenges they too faced more than 20 years ago.
“Many health professionals from overseas don’t have driving skills, and in country sites we don’t have that infrastructure of public transport. So that becomes sometimes very challenging, that we have to engage our team member to pick them up, to drop them off,” Irfan says.
“Communication is one of the biggest challenges for them, because they know English, they can speak good English. But the way of communication overseas, English use is different, I would say, as compared to Australia.”
Sobia and Irfan have established a free training program that introduces incoming pharmacist interns to the Australian pharmaceutical system even before they touch down in Australia. Their mentorship and initiatives have enabled over 4000 overseas pharmacists to pass their exams in the last 12 months alone.
The couple make it very clear that without overseas pharmacists settling in regional towns, “we will end up with no workforce”.
“We don’t have another choice for other health professionals, especially in pharmacy,” Irfan says.
“If you look at South Australia – Whyalla, Port Augusta, Port Pirie, Port Lincoln, Mount Gambier, and other small towns in between – the workforce that we have [is] mostly our overseas trained pharmacists who came to Australia,” he says.
“And because of this commitment from overseas pharmacists, we have regional communities getting service.”
The couple’s effort has been rewarded with them being named in the state’s Australian of the Year awards.
“I found that it’s something which makes us feel proud that we are pharmacists and we are from overseas, and we can contribute to society,” Irfan says.
