On World Pharmacists Day, let’s make sure we are heard, not as silent dispensers, I but as human beings who care deeply about the right to heal, writes Áine Mac Grory
It’s been eight weeks since the loss of my friend and the introduction of grief I have never experienced before. I will admit it has been all-consuming and in processing my personal grief, I am guilty of forgetting about a whole cohort of people experiencing relentless compounding shock and tragedies at the hands of another. Powerless to stop it.
My loss has come with a lot of reflection and has enhanced my despair and compassion for the Palestinians. How fortunate am I to have loved ones in abundance and a safe shelter to retreat to during my time of need. I cannot begin to imagine having to deal with this while also fearing for my life and that of my family, or what is left of them at this point.
How do you even begin to comprehend the scale? How do you weigh the loss
of one life against tens of thousands? How do you hold in your mind the faces of more than 1,000 healthcare workers killed since October 2023? Over a hundred of them pharmacists.
The stomach knots, the heartache, the guilt, the defeat, the sadness, the cruelty. The cruelty. I am struggling to reconcile living on this earth with such hateful humans. Why are we, as a species, tearing each other down? What other animal weakens its own? We are so flawed, and I fear so much for our future.
The other day I disposed of a basket of expired medicines. One of them a paediatric antibiotic. I stopped and stared at it. What is going on? How is this right? My hands, casually binning treatment a child in Gaza would give anything to have. There must be something I can do.
But then the protection of shock fades, and reality kicks back in. I resurface into a world that feels at once normal and unbearable. I hold in parallel the ongoing hopelessness I feel toward Gaza. I delayed writing about it because of the anxiety of not doing it justice. What’s the point? Why bother? What does my opinion matter? What can I do, short of flying over and physically helping and even then, would it make a difference?
I’ve carried this frustration indefinitely. At the 2025 IPU conference, I saw colleagues interrupt a speaker to protest. I heard their passion, and I respected it. But afterwards, I still felt that nagging ‘and then what?’ That persistent sense of impotence bothering me.
As a healthcare worker, my instinct is to heal. It’s stitched into my identity. So, I imagine the agony of being a pharmacist in Gaza right now, shelves bare,
supplies gone, patients still arriving with prescriptions that can’t be filled, and the knowledge that no amount of ingenuity will conjure morphine from nothing.
The Irish Times described it plainly: “Pharmacists helpless as Gazans search in vain for medicines” — anaesthetics, antibiotics, and everyday drugs are scarce. On average, just over 100 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies enter Gaza daily, compared with 500 before the war. It’s not a number on a page; it’s a mother standing in front of you with a feverish child and nothing to give.
And as I continue to grieve my own loss, this deep ache and immense guilt stay with me. I lost one innocent loved one. In Ireland, this does not happen; it is an exceptional and devastating tragedy. My community supported me. I had everything I needed to get through: Compassion, safety, care. And then I shudder at how extremely opposite the situation is for Palestinians. One attack after another. One tragic loss after the next. Starvation, bombing, no safe space, no access to critical medicines. Such purposeful, targeted hate. Being punished for the place you were born.
That’s why a small group of us, watching this unfold from our own pharmacies here in Ireland, could no longer do nothing. We became Irish Pharmacists for Palestine born from a conversation about what we could do, inspired by Irish Healthcare Workers for Palestine. We’ve linked with them to share updates, co-ordinate actions, and remind ourselves that silence is complicity.
We have written letters to politicians, both national and local. We have joined protests. We have boycotted where we could. But the truth is, even as we do all this, we still feel powerless. We know healthcare workers are being deliberately targeted so that Palestine will struggle to heal for generations. The Conversation reminded us that killing or detaining healthcare workers ‘affects the entire population’, stripping away both the present care and the hope for future recovery.
The names and faces of pharmacists lost are not abstract to me. I have read their stories. Some died while sheltering patients, others while travelling to deliver medicines. It’s a roll call of courage met with cruelty. If I can’t bring them back, I can at least make sure they are not forgotten.
This September 25th is World Pharmacists Day. Usually, it passes in our profession with a nod, maybe a poster in the dispensary. But this year, we want it to be loud. We’re asking every pharmacist in Ireland to mark the day by showing visible solidarity with Palestine. Hang posters on the walls, talk to your colleagues, wear badges, share images on social media, tag us on Instagram (@irishpharm4pal)
No one should have to risk their life simply by showing up to work
and X (@IrishPharm4Pal), and use #IrishPharmacistsForPalestine. Tag our colleagues at @irish_hcworkers_for_ palestine_ too. Let the message travel further than our voices alone ever could. Donate on behalf of yourself or your team to the Medicines to Gaza fund.
Because it is not just the bombs and bullets that kill. It is the closing of clinics, the blocking of medicines, the dismantling of the very structures that keep people alive. The International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) and pharmacy leaders across four world regions have now joined the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) in the UK to launch the Medicines to Gaza campaign. The aim is simple: To send medicines where they are needed most, even if politics and cruelty try to stand in the way. FIP’s poster says it plainly: ‘Healthcare is a human right. No pharmacist should be prevented from caring for their patients.’
The Pharmacist journal has reported how Gaza’s pharmacists face “severe shortages” of even the most basic supplies, forcing them to turn patients away or attempt dangerous substitutions. Imagine standing at your counter while knowing the right drug is only kilometres away, blocked by bureaucracy and blockade. Imagine being told to ‘stay in your lane’, when the lane itself has been bombed into rubble.
Some will argue pharmacists should keep politics out of the dispensary. But when your ‘lane’ is health, and health itself is under siege, where exactly are you supposed to stand? Inaction is a choice, and it’s one I can’t make anymore.
If this isn’t our fight, then whose fight is it? I despair at what would happen if that sentiment was turned onmeandIwastheoneatits expense. Why is anyone’s life less important than another’s?
In my Utopian world, the questions would be different. Instead of ‘why can’t medicines get through?’ it would be ‘how quickly can we deliver them?’ Instead of asking ‘how many healthcare workers have been killed?’, we would be asking ‘how many new ones have been trained?’ Pharmacies would not be rubble, but havens that are safe, stocked and staffed. Pharmacies would be the beating heart of healing, not the symbol of its impossibility. That’s the world I wish for, and the one I still believe we can build if enough of us demand it.
To my fellow pharmacists: The next time you hand a patient their prescription, think about your colleagues in Gaza who no longer can. Think about the empty blister packs, the rows of unfilled shelves, the patients sent away without so much as paracetamol. Think about the fact that the people dispensing today may not live to do so tomorrow. And then do something. Show up, speak up, display your solidarity, even if it feels small.
No pharmacist, no doctor, no patient should have to navigate healthcare as an act of resistance. No one should have to risk their life simply by showing up to work.
On this World Pharmacists Day, let’s make sure we are heard, not as silent dispensers, but as human beings who care deeply about the right to heal, no matter where in the world that healing needs to happen.
Nobody should have to say so many endless goodbyes.
If you would like to join our group, contact us at IrishPharmacistsforPalestine@gmail.com.
Áine is a Superintendent Pharmacist and pharmacy owner with over 18 years of experience working in community pharmacies across Ireland. In 2014, she earned her Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) degree in the UK. Her career journey has encompassed a variety of roles, including locum, support, and supervising, culminating in her recent transition to pharmacy ownership. She is deeply committed to upholding the integrity and vital role of community pharmacy in Ireland, combining her extensive experience with a passion for patient care and professional excellence.
