Story & photo: Rohan Francis
After months of renovation work, Sajid Razaq and his team of local professionals have transformed a corner shop next to Burngreave Vestry Hall into a new community pharmacy, offering late night opening hours, 7 days a week.
Director Sajid, lives locally and went to Earl Marshal School (now Firvale). There he studied hard and earned a place at university where he completed a Master’s in Pharmacy. Fellow director and pharmacist, Shakeel Bashir, lived in the Burngreave area for over 25 years. Their determination and effort has begun to pay off, with this most recent store adding to the 3 pharmacies they already operate.
Sajid explained what it took to set up the business:
“We had to do a lot of work on the building to make it suitable for stocking and selling medicines. Then all our plans had to be passed by the General Pharmaceutical Council and registered with the Sheffield Primary Care Trust to get permission to operate.”
Sajid identified a need in Burngreave for a pharmacy that can provide for the many languages spoken locally. Manager, Ahmed Yusef, told us:
“Many people have difficulty reading the information on their medicines. As we are a very multicultural team, we can help them by translating the details into a language they understand. For many people, especially the elderly, this is very reassuring.”
Sajid has drawn most of his staff from the local area. The team also includes: pharmacy student, Hamza Yorachi; apprentice pharmacy technician, Junaid Mahmood and business graduate Shaadiya Hussein. Together, the pharmacy is fluent in English, Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, Somali and Luganda.
Swift Pharmacy is open 7 days, Monday to Saturday 8am-11pm and Sunday 10am-8pm.