Elaine McCormick continues her six decades of services to the north west

Mrs McCormick, or Mrs Mac as many know her, has always had a passion to help people, she has challenged isolation in rural communities and to this day continues to work as a locum pharmacist with no plans of slowing down.

Mrs McCormick, 86, studied to become a community pharmacist at the age of 21. Upon graduating in 1960 she spent a year in New Zealand where she met her husband Graeme before returning to work in Brisbane.

"I've always been doing things I love. The rest of my family became teachers and I was like the black sheep of the family and went into pharmacy," she said.

"It's such a long time ago, I can't remember why I wanted to pursuit it but I loved the idea of helping people."

Mrs McCormick moved to Allora in 1979 where she bought the local pharmacy.

She worked in Allora for 10 years and became well-known for her 'Mrs Mac's Special Cream'.

"A dairy farmer's hands were badly chaffed and he believed he was going to have to stop work. I made him this special cream and it worked wonders," she said.

"It has some anti-fungal and healing in it and after all these years, I still have about 100 people ringing or writing to me for the cream and I send it out all over Australia."

In 1989 Mrs McCormick and her family moved to Cloncurry she bought Cloncurry Pharmacy, where she said "it all came to fruition".

Mrs McCormick established satellite pharmacies in Julia Creek, Richmond, Normanton, Karumba, and conducted bush nurses at McKinlay.

Due to isolation, Mrs McCormick used an early version of video call to assess patient symptoms.

"There was so much isolation, I felt that people in the bush didn't get the same care as people in the cities," she said.

"Because I couldn't talk to people or see what their symptoms were, we used to have this little video thing, it wasn't Skype, but I could talk to them and see their rashes and see their newborn babies. Long before it was thought of now.

"If you were a lady with a baby on a cattle station, isn't it nice to be able to have a pharmacist to talk to and recommend what to do and have someone to talk to. I think that's what it's all about. I could provide medical and personal recommendations to patients."

The doctor at Julia Creek would fax patient's script to Mrs McCormick in Cloncurry where she would put them on the bus for daily delivery.

"When the bus was running it was easy to do it everyday for Julia Creek and Richmond, but it was once a week for Normanton and Karumba. So I also used to travel to Normanton and Karumba on weekends," she said.

"The biggest challenge was distance and also when the buses stopped running to Normanton and Karumba. It was a challenge to get drugs up there, so I used to post them.

"One of the most rewarding experiences was mentoring pharmacy students to work in rural and remote locations. It was a great experience for us all."

After Mrs McCormick's husband died, she sold Cloncurry Pharmacy and moved to Karumba in 2006 where she opened a pharmacy to service the gulf communities.

"I was there for five years before I had a heart attack, so I moved to Forrest Beach near Ingham," she said.

"I was going to retire completely but after a month I was bored so I started doing some locum work."

Mrs McCormick continues to work as a locum servicing Forrest Beach Pharmacy and Hughenden Pharmacy and has no immediate plans of retiring.

"I really enjoy going out there. People complain about having to travel 20 miles to a pharmacy but out there they are travelling 200," she said.

"Every year I think I am going to retire but I just keep going. I had a knee reconstruction last year, so while I'm still on my feet I'll keep going.

"Over the years there has been accolades for my work, but for me it is something I am passionate about and I still think that they should look after people in the bush.

"The people in the bush are lovely, genuine people that go the extra mile for you and it is so rewarding when people appreciate what you do. I might be a bushie at heart."