Kyle Wood purchased Southside Pharmacy in August 2021. It was a thriving local business that not only dispensed medication but was also the largest clientele of NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), DVA (Department of Veteran Affairs) and Aged Care Support in Lismore.

The floor space in Casino Street was 500 square metres while the equipment for aged care and disabilities was next door at 200 square metres, all up 700 square metres in South Lismore that was always busy.

Soon after Kyle purchased the business from long term Southside Pharmacy pharmacist Michael Hermann, he began to look at how the business operated and came to the conclusion that being a sole trading pharmacist was not economically possible anymore. So, Southside Chempro was born.

(Owner Kyle Wood in his Southside Chempro store in Casino Street, South Lismore)

"The Chempro Group is great because it gives us the greatest amount of flexibility to operate as our store is very unique. We do a whole lot of things that are non-standard and a lot of other banner groups would restrict that," Kyle explained.

February 28 changed a great deal for Kyle and his 26 staff as a wall of water rushed through both buildings causing over a million dollars worth of damage.

Kyle told the Lismore App he doesn't want to focus on the negatives of the flood but look forward to the future so this story is about how an essential service business is making the best of a catastrophic situation and is looking for solutions to their cramped operating problems.

Once the floodwaters receded Kyle and his dedicated staff cleaned out the pharmacy using Kyle's farm tractor and were trading again within six days. This is no mean feat as the original building was decimated and the owner not in a position to rebuild it, so it still stands with a battered interior that is uninhabitable.

That meant Kyle had to put 700 square metres of pharmacy medication, machinery and equipment into 200 square metres to serve the Lismore community and especially the battered South Lismore community. Not an easy task.

If Southside Chempro was like most other chemists and dispensed medicine as the core of their business, this would not be a huge problem but when you have a non-standard business that has NDIS, DVA and aged care customers you need traction machines, electric patient lifters, palliative care beds, mobility scooters, a huge range of catheters and other large items you need a showroom to display them and some room to store them.

"We have more staff in aged care than we do in the dispensary," Kyle stated.

"We have had to try and cram everything into this building and we're trying to provide all the services we did (pre-flood) and we are providing most of them but not to 100% capacity. That's just the reality that you can't be at 100% while you're in less than a third of the space."

As you can see by the photos, Kyle and his team are doing everything they can to provide the essential services the community needs but they are not the ideal working conditions for staff and for maximum output. You can imagine the turnover of much needed equipment in the aged care sector alone with commodes, walkers, scooters and reclining chairs that help the elderly get out of a lounge chair. People want to go in to sit and feel to make sure it is right for them.

The convenience factor comes into play here as well because Ballina is your closest option for some of the equipment but often it is the Gold Coast or Brisbane if Southside Chempro was closed.

"We might have beds here now and then none this afternoon," Kyle explained. That is how this part of the health sector works.

If anyone has some real estate solutions for Kyle please get in touch via Southside Chempro in Casino Street. He would love to talk to you so he can work out a long term solution. The only proviso is, the building needs to be in South Lismore.

To help financially, there is a push from all the primary health care providers in the area to get some funding to help get some of the private businesses setup.

"The public hospital system is massively saturated," Kyle said, "And none of us are operating at 100% so it is putting more load on them."

"The Rural Doctors Network and the Australian Medical Association have been spearheading this campaign. They are using the Keen Street Medical Centre and us as case studies for why the funding was wholly insufficient. So, they're asking for $15 million that primary health providers in the area can access so they can get set up and operate like they did before the flood. This is not a cash grab, this is just to get backup and provide essential services to the area."

In some peoples eyes, pharmacists are all rich people that can afford to drive nice cars and live in small mansions or as Kyle puts it, "It's not me trying to buy a second chopper."

It cost Kyle and his family between $1 million and $1.5 million in the flood and like most people, not many have that kind of cash lying around so the loans add up and that is another area where Chempro came to the rescue.

"People don't realise that when you move a pharmacy from one location to the next, even if it is next door, there are regulatory hurdles to overcome and Chempro helped with the paperwork and got it fast tracked in half a day so we could reopen."

Solving the short term problems, that is cleaning and reopening, hinder the long term solutions as you can't stop work, move stock and keep rebuilding the interior because you are operating a massively busy essential service.

New real estate options would give Kyle more options to solve his space issues.