A Youthful Dispenser

Southland Times, Issue 22487, 23 January 1935, Page 5

A Youthful Dispenser

Miss Mavis Sweeney, the dispenser at the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children, is a young woman still in her early twenties, who is doing fine work in her profession (states a Sydney exchange). She has the complete responsibility of the bospital pharmacy; she attends to the medicinal needs of all the patients, both indoor and outdoor, and each week she dispenses well over one thousand bottles of medicines and innumerable lotions, liniments,, and ointments. She attends to the ordering of all the medical supplies used at the Rachel Forster Hospital, and it is her work to see that nothing is lacking in the stocks, on the dispensary shelves and in the hospital wards. An average of three hundred outpatients attend at the. hospital each visiting day and practically every one of them requires something from the dispensary. To those who can afford it, a charge of ninepence is made for a week’s supply of medicine. Miss Sweeney has to handle the money herself and at the end of each day, after the last patient has departed, she balances her budget. During the last fortnight the hospital has been officially closed to outpatients; nevertheless, during the fourteen days of so-called recess over sixty patients have been treated daily. During this period Miss Sweeney and the medical superintendent were the only members of the medical staff on duty and they have had quite a busy time attending to the demands on the hospital. During the past week, Miss Sweeney spent as much time as possible preparing the stock for the new year’s activities, and her records show that she handled just on ten thousand bottles in her work of relabelling, dispensing and replenishing the supplies. Miss Sweeney is a graduate of Sydney University and before going to the Rachel Forster Hospital she managed a suburban dispensary for two years.