How UPS Is Not Helping Katrina Refugees

Alright, here’s the deal. You know that El is ill. She takes a lot of meds. She gets them through one of those mail-order companies through her insurance. So, right before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, the insurance company shipped this month’s refills.

Well, El and her family get to Memphis and Mrs. M calls the insurance company, but they’ve already shipped everything so they give her the UPS tracking number. Mrs. M calls UPS and finally gets a real live person, but when she explains the situation and asks for the lady to change the shipment address, the UPS customer support person simply replied that they could not reroute it, but that they would try to deliver it three times and then it would go back to the company. The went round and round about this. Mrs. M tried talking to a supervisor and a supervisor’s supervisor but they refused to reroute the package. Before the arguing was over, UPS had rerouted all New Orleans-area-bound shipments to a warehouse somewhere to await the reopenning of the area.

The insurance company agreed finally to resend the meds, except there’s one med they can’t resend because it’s a narcotic and there’s some sort of law or something. The insurance people said they could get around it if she contacted her doctor and had him rewrite the prescription.

Mind you the doctor’s office is in New Orleans…

El is now out of pain patches for whatever it is that ails her.

They are somewhere in a UPS warehouse.

Now what?

tags: Hurricane Katrina, UPS

3 comments

1. on September 7, 2005 at 10:27 pm

   Mike said:

   UPS has totally ticked me off in the past as well, though with much less important shipments. I had a couple airbrushes and supplies ordered from Dixie Art and shipped via UPS. At the time the main way to my house had a bridge out, but there were clear detour signs. Apparently their driver can’t read those though, because they gave me a call saying that the driver couldn’t deliver the package. No biggie, they say they’ll hold it for a while and I could pick it up at their office. Their hours? 10am to 5pm, Mon-Fri. I work during that time, so they say they can deliver it to my job.

   I inform my boss of it, she’s cool with it, etc. I wait on the package all day and nothing. I get home, check the tracking #. The delivery attempt was at 7:33PM; after everyone had gone home. The security guard was the only person there. He can’t accept packages, so they marked it refused and returned to sender. The thing hadn’t been in transit back to the sender for more than 2 hours before I was on the phone and they wouldn’t route it back to me. Ended up having to have it resent via US Postal (who managed to follow the detour signs just fine). Now I avoid UPS when I can.

2. on September 8, 2005 at 1:45 am

   Jennifer said:

   I would suggest visiting a pharmacy in Memphis.

   I work in pharmacy, so not knowing the full details of your situation, I c an’t 100% assure you that they would be able to help either, but it is worth a shot. I know the state boards of Arkansas and Tennessee have overridden laws for this emergency situation.

   Also, there are tons of clinics set up in my town (and Memphis being a whole lot bigger I’m sure there are some there too) that are seeing patients for free and writing presriptions for them.

3. on September 8, 2005 at 12:35 pm

   n. mallory said:

   I did tell her to try to contact the local Red Cross. I believe they left Memphis yesterday for Hammond, LA. Hopefully they’ll take my advice. I know she used the last of the narcotic pain patches on Monday.

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