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Interview: Lourette Philips
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Lourette Philips has suffered racial and gender discrimination but her experiences have emboldened her to support other women to speak out. The president of the National Association of Women Pharmacists talks to Neil Trainis…
The exoticism of Sharm El-Sheikh is not an obvious setting from which to talk about discrimination, inequality and harassment in pharmacy but Lourette Philips does not mind one iota.
The president of the National Association of Women Pharmacists (NAWP) is there to support a charity run that is taking place in the searing heat to raise awareness of breast cancer. She is passionate about the cause but cheerfully makes it clear she is not there to run.
“Not the running. I don’t do running. I donate and take pictures and promote. I think running is not my part,” she says with a chuckle over Teams and smiling when I say I wish I was interviewing her in the Egyptian resort instead of remotely from drizzly London.
Before we delve into her work with NAWP, I get a sense of Lourette’s backstory and life. She’s a locum pharmacist and spends four days a week working in community pharmacy in East Sussex and one day in a prison, the location of which she is not keen to divulge. It’s interesting work.
Prison life, as far as she can tell, doesn’t have the brutality and grittiness with which it’s portrayed in the movies or in novels. We’re not talking Escape from Alcatraz here.
“It’s not that awful. They’re very well treated, some of the prisoners. They’ve got an excellent healthcare system from what I’ve seen. I’ve seen people diagnosed with rare cancer that they would never have been diagnosed with on the outside.
“I’ve seen people in prison diagnosed with very rare skin diseases and that’s because we took the time to investigate, research the symptoms. And prisoners are very welcoming of the healthcare system in prisons, they’re very appreciative.”
Lourette is also a prescriber and works in a multi-disciplinary healthcare prison team. “We will discuss everything together. If there’s a case that’s troubling and the doctors want to discuss it with the prescribers, they get an MDT team together.
“We’ll discuss the situation, whether it’s mental health, whether it’s a rare disease, so we can get the patient the best possible care. I’m pharmacy, so I’ll be talking about medicine, how to take it.
“I’ll make sure the prisoner is using everything correctly and on a weekly basis, touch base. The prescribers will be talking to them about their condition, how to take care of themselves. The consultant will get involved in diagnosing.
“So, it’s all of us working together. It’s a really close-knit team actually in every prison you’ll see.”
It might be down to morbid fascination but I wonder if Lourette’s team handles murderers or rapists. “No, no, no. It’s just category C, the easy ones. No murderers. I haven’t been to any murderers yet. Maybe in the future,” she says, chuckling again.
Deep connection with Egypt and Brighton
She insists her trip to Egypt is as much a “working holiday” as it is a charity-supporting mission. “I’ll be doing courses to expand my IP,” she says, without going into detail.
But Lourette has another connection with Egypt. Her parents are Egyptian and both are pharmacists. She was born into a Coptic Christian family and spent her very early years in Cairo.
Her childhood is filled with happy memories, in stark contrast to some rather tough times during her career in pharmacy, more of which shortly.
“Growing up in Egypt was a long time ago for me. It’s very family-orientated, very religious-orientated. Everything was around Christianity, we were very community-knit families where we all got together, six or seven homes together, and suddenly, we’d all go off on a day trip to the Red Sea, the Med.
“We all got together in one house, all the cousins, and studied together, took piano lessons together. Everything had to be done together. Everyone knew everything about everyone. And they would aways feed you. Whenever you went to an Egyptian house, just eat.”
Egypt, naturally, has a special place in Lourette’s heart but she insists she “fell in love with Brighton” when she arrived there with her family at the age of 10.
“We originally came for family reasons. My grandad was very sick and he wanted to see us before he passed away. It ended up being two years before, bless him, he passed away. We’d already settled in school and we had businesses anyway in the UK, so thought ‘we’ll stay in the UK. We love it.’”
Her father is a retired industrial pharmacist and her mother works in community pharmacy in the UK. “We did our pre-regs together,” Lourette says.
“She did her pharmacy degree four years with me. I was at Portsmouth, she was at Brighton University. She did her pre-reg year and we sat the exam together, to my father’s mental detriment. He went mad that week trying to keep his daughter and his wife sane during the exam period.
“My sister is an optician, so is her husband. They own a few branches and a big chain which we won’t mention. My niece, who is my pride and joy, was born on March 8, International Women’s Day. So, it’s only right that I became the president of the National Association of Women Pharmacists.”
I’ve had my share of sexual and racial harassment
What strikes you about Lourette is her good natured, glass-half-full approach to life. It’s the first time I have met her and throughout our chat, she smiles and giggles, even as she recounts unpleasant recollections. That’s not because she takes what happened lightly but because of her determination to keep her spirits up and not allow the denigrators to win.
As she bluntly put it last summer when she was unveiled as NAWP’s new president, “as an Egyptian female pharmacist, I have had my fair share of sexual and racial harassment during my career.”
She has gone through difficult moments in her personal and professional life having qualified as a pharmacist in 2005. “In my personal life, we had big racial harassment from a neighbour to the point that we had to move house and the police were involved.
“In my professional life, we had one major (incident) to the point where I had to name the person in my resignation. That person, at the end of the investigation, is no longer working in pharmacy and has been told he can’t work in a leadership position because he can’t treat female pharmacists different to male pharmacists.
“Basically, it was about pay and he wasn’t too happy she was doing much better than his male pharmacist managers. He wasn’t too pleased. He made my life a bit hell.”
Lourette didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement but, understandably, doesn’t want to name names or places and insists her decision to reveal his identity at the time of her resignation “opened a can of worms.”
“They don’t like you to name people when you resign, for any reason. But I did. And I stood my ground. But obviously, it wasn’t very good that I left the position I loved and worked really hard to achieve.”
True to the old aphorism, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, Lourette has used her experiences to support other women who have suffered similar ordeals.
It doesn’t feel right to describe her as a ‘victim’ given her strength of character. Her experiences make her the right person to lead NAWP because they have emboldened her to help others speak out instead of keeping shtum in fear of the repercussions.
Many of the women she has supported have suffered sexual harassment or been undermined by a boss because of their gender.
“Some managers are not happy their female (staff) are doing better than their male counterparts. They don’t want to give the position of management but support management is ok because management for a woman is not very good, apparently.
“I’ve worked with them on writing statements and some did resign at the end of the day but some found their way and we won.”
Another character-forming aspect of Lourette’s experience was developing the strength to maintain a sense of self-worth. “It was maybe my third or fourth job in pharmacy. I had worked my way up, I was a branch manager.
“In my pre-reg year, I was trained as a branch manager. I’m not being big-headed, but I know my self-worth. I’ve increased days, I’ve increased items, I’ve increased targets, I’ve increased this and that, so I knew my self-worth, I knew what others in the company were doing.
“I knew how much I should be paid. But it wasn’t just about the pay. It was the way he talked, the way he came forward and sort of dismissed any ideas you had. And belittling you in front of customers.
He went ballistic but I saved the girl’s life
“I refused to make a sale once and he was there and he went ballistic and the lady (customer) put a complaint on him because by me stopping the sale, I saved the girl’s life. She had to go to hospital for an operation and we found out a week later (the lady) had put a complaint on him through the company.
“So, it was the way of talking and the way of treating someone. It’s not just about pay. It was the way he was talking to me in every meeting, belittling me like I’m not important, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Lourette says she complained to the company but didn’t get much support and, worse, was told it was all in her head. They did, however, pull him to one side to talk to him.
She says it was only after she submitted her resignation that she “got all the support” she “should have had from the beginning.”
“(The company) was like ‘ok, we’ll support you to stay on, we’ll limit his contact with you, we’ll get his assistant to contact you.’
“I said ‘that’s not really the solution though. We need to understand why he’s doing it. Maybe there’s an underlying issue, maybe it’s a habit, maybe it’s a personality thing that we need to discuss.’
“At the start, I was willing to go along with them but I think at the end, they just wanted to end it because it was getting a bit big. A lot of people were getting involved.
“I was like ‘I’m not really happy with a company that’s willing to keep him on and I’m not going to work with him as an area manager. It’s not very practical.’ You’re supposed to have a very good workplace environment.”
Lourette says her “very supportive family” helped her deal with her predicament. “I’m a bit more open now, a stronger person, maybe because of the situation. So, if anything happens, I don’t actually keep quiet. I’m one of those who will speak up.”
A sense of relief coats her words as she says her experience with “that gentleman” was something of a colleague-related one-off. Most of the abuse she has encountered has been “more customer-led.”
She recounts that on one occasion a couple of months ago, the tills in one of the supermarket pharmacies where she worked went down. A customer told Lourette if she “went back home,” the tills would come back online.
“I just laughed because it didn’t make sense. I think it’s more customer-based targets when it comes to pharmacy against either female pharmacists who they don’t trust – they think male pharmacists will be more professional – or a newly qualified overseas pharmacist.
“Again, they won’t trust their wording and they’ll maybe ask to speak to someone else who has worked there longer and maybe knows more.”
Working with Ability, BAME and LGBT networks
For those who are unfamiliar with NAWP’s history, the organisation was formed in London in 1905 but in the last few years has become part of the Pharmacists’ Defence Association alongside its Ability, BAME and LGBT networks.
Lourette says NAWP is working with those networks to bolster the fight to secure equality but is aware there is a bigger picture to rooting out discrimination. “It’s not just customers,” she insists. “It could be both ways. It could the pharmacist against the customer.”
Lourette urges males to speak up too when they suffer harassment or discrimination. “It doesn’t have to be women. It can be female power over her male colleague.
“And I always tell them to speak up. It needs to be sorted. It’s not the way work should be. It’s good to see the law coming into force, so hopefully everyone starts to implement it.”
The law, otherwise known as the Equality Act 2010, is designed to protect people from discrimination in the workplace “and wider society.” However, Lourette thinks “there’s been very little progress” in the 20 years or so since she came into pharmacy.
Has she come across many cases where women have harassed men at work? “I think only once. He was a student. So, the power of a pharmacist over a student…we like to have students who are a bit more proactive and I think this student was pushing his luck way to much throughout the year.
“But he had a lack of support and the female manager just started to take her position a little bit too far. To be fair, I actually spoke to her and everyone in that team.
“I said ‘look, change the attitudes because you’re making him feel down. He might not be proactive, he might not succeed at the end, but we need to give our best. And then he needs to do his part. We do our part and then he does his part. And then whatever happens is up to him really.’
“You can only lead them so far. To be fair, it is men against women, the majority.”
As effective as NAWP is in raising awareness of the issues facing women in pharmacy and providing a platform for them to air their views, its ability to bring about change is limited.
That’s not a criticism, just the sobering reality. Only through legislative change will we see an end to racial and gender discrimination at work.
“NAWP can’t work on its own,” Lourette says. “All four inequalities networks with the PDA need to work together. One hand is not good enough. Many hands together will bring through legislation.
“We go through the government and talk to them, raise awareness and make our voices heard for change to happen. Yes, you’re right, one network can’t do it. We can’t do it on our own. That’s why we support each other, that’s why we’ve got the PDA backing us up.
“That’s why we’re affiliated with other societies as well, like the Fawcett Society (a charity campaigning for gender equality and women's rights.) We work alongside them, we see what they’re doing.”
The gender pay gap across all sectors is still to be eradicated. A 2024 report by the Office for National Statistics said although the gap “has been declining slowly over time,” the full-time median hourly earnings excluding overtime in April 2024 was £17.88 for women, £19.24 for men.
Equality Act needs to be reviewed 'periodically'
Last year, the Fawcett Society said the gap for 2024 was 11.3 per cent, up from 10.4 per cent in 2023. It doesn’t sound as though the Equality Act is bringing about great equality.
“The legislation is there but it’s not being implemented 100 per cent, so that’s why we need to raise our voices higher,” Lourette insists. She believes all legislation, not just this one, needs to be reviewed “periodically.”
“If it’s not working, what tweaks do we need to do? It could be that it hasn’t been implemented because there’s no training, no resources.
"Some companies might have implemented it and are doing great, some can’t because they haven’t got the resources, the time, the training, the manpower. We need to look around at why it’s not been implemented.”
Lourette does not think big fines for companies who consistently fail to address discrimination would be a deterrent. She believes there must be a “culture change, a mindset change.” Companies “should want to change for the better of their workforce.”
She firmly makes the point that NAWP’s effectiveness depends on people informing it about what’s going on in pharmacy. Everyone, she says, be it owners of independent pharmacies, regional managers, managers, big companies, has a responsibility to change “the mentality of the culture we live in.”
“You have an ethnic foreigner coming in, maybe he doesn’t know as much, so he should be earning less. And somebody who is British who is born and bred in the UK, he is entitled to more. It’s a thinking mentality across the board.”
Combining support for women and all locums
The battle for equality in the workplace, of course, goes beyond women’s rights. Lourette is also a locum rep for the PDA. “We have put up a locum campaign to support locum pharmacists because they are usually a bit more isolated in the world of pharmacy.
“They’re not as much supported by the companies. We’re all very alone. We all go in, work the day, then leave. We might have friends but we’re not given protected time for learning or extra pay or getting involved in the company’s structure.”
She wants to combine her work with NAWP and all locums regardless of their sex, “supporting anyone who needs support anonymously or un-anonymously.”
“My WhatsApp, my numbers, my emails have all been known, so come forward for anything,” she pleads. “We also want to raise awareness of any sexual harassment, maternity. At the moment, one of our members is going to go to the Scottish trade union women’s conference and put a petition up to do with more maternity care for women. I want to personally support all the causes.”
This year has a special significance. “It’s 120 years of NAWP,” Lourette says enthusiastically. She also has her eyes on March 8 – International Women's Day.
“We’re having a big face-to-face get together. We’re going to have fact sheets produced by the PDA for everybody who comes in, we’re going to have speakers come and talk.
“Hopefully, we’ll get our voices heard and we’ll be as active as we have been in the last few years.”