Granite Staters are experiencing delays in getting essential medications, as the U.S Postal Service undergoes national changes.
A recent poll found nearly 1 in 5 Americans get their prescription through the mail. This number has been increasing since the beginning of the pandemic. However, as the post office made widespread cuts to overtime, post office hours, and mail sorting machines, some patients in New Hampshire who rely on the mail service to receive their prescriptions are voicing concern.
Marie-Elizabeth Ramas, a family physician in Nashua, has had several patients who experienced delays in getting their medications.
Ramas has encouraged her patients to stay away from the hospital as much as possible, as COVID-19 poses a large risk to those that are immunocompromised. However, delayed medications have forced them to go anyway to receive the care they urgently need.
One of her patients, for example, struggles with heart failure and takes medication to keep water out of the heart and lungs. After several delays in receiving the medicine, the patient eventually went to the hospital, despite the fact that heart failure places them in one of the most at-risk groups for developing serious illness from COVID-19.
Other patients with cerebral palsy, have had to go without medications and food that goes in through a gastrostomy tube due to the delays.
“How can we give them basic nuts and bolts of life in order to keep them out of the hospital and away from danger,” she said.
At a hearing with the Postmaster-General, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan said her office has had a spike in calls from people worried about the delays.
One woman wrote that she couldn’t rely on USPS to deliver her medication on time, so she started picking up her prescriptions in-person at a pharmacy, despite the fact that she is in a high risk demographic for COVID-19. Another couple from Manchester said they have started rationing their prescription, which they fill through their VA benefits, because of the delays.
“I start cutting back on my dosage to half pills or skipping alternate days to make them last,” they wrote. “Some of my pills are crucial, my cardiac and diabetic meds need to be on a strict protocol.”
In a roundtable this week, Hassan said the Post Master General told her there are no plans to reconnect or replace the mail sorting machine in Manchester, which has been sold for scrap metal.
Regan Lamphier, a Nashua resident who also works for the postal service, said she’s worried about her husband, who receives insulin in the mail for his Type 1 Diabetes.
So far, the couple hasn’t had to worry about the delays. His medication comes in three-month supplies, which they ordered long before the U.S Post Office was in the national news.
But she is worried about what to expect in a week when their insurance company will allow them to order his next shipment of insulin.
“Bill needs insulin to live,” she said. “If the mails delayed and he doesn’t get his insulin, in one day, he’ll be really sick. More than one day, he’d end up in the hospital.”