While we're currently in a cost-of-living crisis and many healthcare professionals are striking, my pharmacy's travel clinic is full with the younger generation working hard, saving and travelling in their gap years.
I am currently in a bubble of gap-year students. We employ four of them in our pharmacy, having searched for permanent staff and failed.
I am servicing the travel vaccine requirements of many of them through my pharmacy travel clinic, which has become very busy.
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There are many other travellers going around the world to see their families, or with work, but the majority of the enquiries at the moment are from gap-year students.
The juxtaposition we see in this pharmacy world of ours is not lost on me. On the one hand, there is undoubtedly a cost-of-living crisis, bringing with it an increase in reliance on food banks and state support. On the other, the travel clinic is thriving.
Why are there so many young travellers this year? I can’t help feeling that COVID-19 has had a role to play.
Many have deferred university places and a planned gap year. Several I have asked are deferring their life decisions until after they have travelled.
Some applied to medical school last year and were rejected despite good grades and medical school exam scores.
Medical school applications in England were hugely oversubscribed last year due to increased grades in the year before – a knock on of the controversial government COVID-19 algorithm from the year before – and due to the reduction of places from 10,000 to 7,500.
Most of the people I have spoken to are re-applying and on an enforced gap year while they do so.
If you are having a gap year, there should be no shortage of jobs and therefore earning potential for travel.
We have employed gap year students for two years now – they are diligent and keen to work and learn. The downside is that most of them tend to travel at the same time.
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Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia seem extremely popular this year. I imagine that if I know of at least 30 people going there, then these countries will be swamped.
So the cost-of-living crisis appears to be adversely affecting some while allowing others to take opportunities.
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Maybe gap-year students still living at home have not experienced a rise in cost-of-living, although they will see it in increased vaccine prices, petrol and more in their worlds.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be that age again with those opportunities?
The last quarter of 2022 saw a potent combination of many aspiring travellers and difficulty getting hold of certain vaccines.
Initially in 2022, I found it hard to get hold of even basic vaccines such as hepatitis A and typhoid.
And from October, supplies of rabies and Japanese encephalitis vaccines dwindled. Happily, stock seemed to improve in January this year, although they are more expensive now.
In addition to travel health, business people are also coming to the pharmacy in droves for advice, perceiving that it is difficult to see their GPs.
We can fix most of their ailments but pre-COVID-19, people were not prepared to pay for our recommended treatments. They stated they would go to their GP instead.
Now they are happy to pay, which is professionally rewarding.
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As a pharmacist, my working day is certainly different post COVID-19 – advising on more complex clinical cases and administering vaccines.
Jackie Lewis is owner of Lewis Pharmacy in Exmouth