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MARIO & MATTHEW<br />
CALANNA<br />
Calanna Whole Health Centre Woree<br />
Historically innovative<br />
whole health service<br />
Words by Janie Barton | Photos by Catherine Coombs<br />
Like his father Mario, Matthew Calanna is an ideas man<br />
and is constantly coming up with innovative ways of<br />
providing whole health solutions for people in Far North<br />
Queensland.<br />
Mario established Calanna in 1976, which has since<br />
grown into the largest family-owned whole health<br />
pharmacy group in Northern Australia. Matthew joined<br />
in 2003 after completing his Bachelor of Pharmacy<br />
degree and is now the General Manager and Director<br />
of 11 Calanna Whole Health pharmacies in <strong>Cairns</strong>,<br />
Atherton, Innisfail, Townsville and the Gold Coast.<br />
For many years Calanna has been first movers on new<br />
technology and innovation in pharmacy. Under Mario’s<br />
guidance, Calanna was the first pharmacy in Northern<br />
Australia to be accredited under the Pharmacy Guild<br />
of Australia Quality Care Program, introduce in-store<br />
naturopaths and in-store sleep clinics, provide medical<br />
and veterinary compounding, acupuncture, massage<br />
and nursing support as a part of their holistic service<br />
model. Mario also worked with his own naturopath over<br />
25 years ago to develop his own range of natural healing<br />
and treatment ointments, sprays, tonics and essential oil<br />
blends - known as Marios.<br />
“Traditional medicine will always be a big part of our<br />
business, but whole health and complementary medicine<br />
is what we have done for decades,” said Matthew.<br />
“We are focussed on looking at a person’s whole<br />
health, looking at prevention through diet, lifestyle and<br />
supplementation and providing this through the trusted<br />
advice and support of qualified health practitioners<br />
like pharmacists, nurses and naturopaths, and we make<br />
that all easily accessible to the public in one shop. We<br />
also offer medical and surgical consumable wholesaling<br />
across the region.”<br />
While Mario is still involved, Matthew now heads up the<br />
business and is introducing a number of new and cuttingedge<br />
technologies to improve service to the public. Three<br />
of its locations (Woree, Kirwan and Deeragun) now<br />
incorporate robotic dispensing to manage and dispense<br />
medicines.<br />
<strong>CityLife</strong> 12 Magazine
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