Customers at Crosshaven Pharmacy have been receiving a bonus prescription over the past few days- for cups of tea and Christmas chocolates.

Staff at the pharmacy have been handing out sweets in sealed bags, labelled with the instructions to "take one three times daily with a cup of tea" to their customers over the festive period.

The pharmacy typically provides some treats to customers in the lead-up to Christmas but due to Covid-19, staff had to come up with a new way to safely hand out some chocolate.

The inspiration for the idea use the bags and stickers as an alternative to the usual tin of sweets that would usually be available to customers, came from Gillian Hickey and her sister Debbie Hickey from Hickey's Pharmacy in Thurles.

A tweet with an image of the kind gesture from Crosshaven Pharmacy has been circulating on social media and now has over 3,000 shares and over 46,000 likes.

My aunt just got given these in her local pharmacy and honestly this is yet another reason why I need to move to Cork pic.twitter.com/VTtlZtGPH5

— Keira Gilleechi (@gilleechi) December 21, 2020

“We’ve got nice feedback from it and we got a few calls from up the country to say that it just made them happy to see it,” said pharmacist at Crosshaven Pharmacy, Deirdre Thompson.

“We have a very nice clientele here and it’s just a tiny thing to try and just say thanks and have a great Christmas."

“It’s the simple things this year that seem to make a difference,” she added.