Mario Calanna: Cairns pharmacist on life, family, cancer battle after winning lifetime award
Cairns pharmacy identity Mario Calanna has opened up about battling cancer, the importance of family and the profession he loves after receiving one of the industry’s top honours.
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CAIRNS pharmacy pioneer Mario Calanna has opened up about battling cancer, the importance of family and the profession he loves after receiving one of the industry’s top honours.
The respected businessman has been awarded life membership to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, having joined upon graduating in 1971 before building Calanna’s Pharmacy on his father’s Woree cane paddock in 1977.
He has become a fixture of the suburb and has built a thriving business empire with 11 pharmacies across Cairns, Townsville, Innisfail, Atherton and the Gold Coast.
Recognisable to generations of Far Northerners – he is now serving his first customers’s grandchildren – the old school gentleman has always had a friendly smile, a ready ear and kind words when customers needed help.
He is now facing a health battle of his own after being diagnosed with blood cancer three years ago.
But even the realisation of one’s own mortality cannot keep a good man down.
“We thought we had it under control and it was behaving itself, but it flared up again,” Mr Calanna said.
“I’m back on treatment now. It does change your focus on life and your energy.
“You’re living on blood test results, but it allows you to reflect on life and you meet some wonderful people along the way.
“When you know you’re not going to live forever, time becomes a little bit more precious than it used to be.”
Mr Calanna helped his dad section off a portion of the family farm in Woree to build Australia’s first integrated pharmacy and medical centre in Australia back in 1977.
It is still very much the family operation he built with wife Linda, daughter Catherine Hackett and son Matthew Calanna all taking lead roles in its success.
The industry has transformed from typewriters and water rollers for sticking on labels to computers and robotic dispensers, but the key premise remains the same.
“One basic thing that hasn’t changed is the focus on the customer,” he said.
“That has always been the number one thing for me since we opened.”
Mr Calanna won a national oratory competition in 1989 for a heart-rending speech arguing that having “time to love” was the most valuable Australian possession.
It is clear he still believes his words from so long ago.
“It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, you can’t take it with you,” he said.
“We can’t affect the Australian economy too much, but we can affect our home economy – our character, our finances and they way we lead our kids and the example we show them.
“This is the basis of our whole community and country. It always comes down to the family. Always.”
Editorial by Chris Calcino
SHORT shorts, knee-high socks and gaudy button-up shirts were the epitome of male haute couture when I first met Mario Calanna.
I would have been about as tall as a piano stool, bleary eyed and feverish with a bout of tonsillitis and a mum in need of pharmaceutical supplies to get me across the line.
Growing up in Woree, Mr Calanna was an institution – always with a kind smile and ready for a chat with anyone who walked through the doors.
He was a lot like the butchers down at Cairns Bulk Meats on Ishmael Rd who always gave us a free cheerio while the folks were stocking up on meat. An old school gentleman in every sense of the word, and the kids loved him.
If memory serves me, Mr Calanna had a markedly similar fashion sense to my dad in the ’90s, all knobbly knees, tiny dacks and a huge level of modesty afforded to cotton-obscured shins. Fashion has changed – have a glance over our Cairns Amateurs coverage if you haven’t already – but some things have not budged an inch.
Mr Calanna is still an institution, still an old school gentleman and still a leader of the Cairns community.
He has built a thriving business with his family at the core of everything he does, and for that he should be congratulated.
Life membership to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia is a well deserved nod to his tireless work over 50 years, but the true recognition comes from his community.
To be honest, I doubt he would remember me as a youngster.
I wasn’t all that memorable.
It just goes to show you never know how much a little bit of generosity and old-fashioned friendliness can affect those around you.
Congratulations Mr Calanna, on a job well done.
Originally published as Mario Calanna: Cairns pharmacist on life, family, cancer battle after winning lifetime award
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