Tracking med shipment and old parents’ health

The pandemic has turned our lives upside down to a great extent that every walk of life has become unpredictable and rough to ride. If you are a traveller and you are out of your country at this time, there are many things to worry about. One such deep cause of worry for the immigrants has been with the issue of getting medicines for those loved ones who are forced to extend their stay in the US.

With the cancellation of commercial flights since March 23, many families are forced to extend the stay of their parents in the US. This comes with providing for their medicines as well. Particularly when most of them are dependent on drugs for their underlying health conditions, the situation becomes compelling.

Most of the travellers, particularly the parents who visit their children, are coming for a definite time period and carry medicines enough to cover their period of stay. The unexpected extension of their stay gets them into a tensed situation with regard to getting their medical supplies from India on time. Significant numbers of these stranded travellers are dependent on diabetes or blood pressure drugs that become very crucial for their routine life. It is here the uncertainty of the time period of the couriers reaching them that causes problems.

“We organised my dad’s medicine from Chennai, quite ahead of her supplies getting exhausted. Our shipment got delayed and we were so tensed about the situation. It just arrived right at the time when the last two days of supply were left. It felt like a miracle to receive the shipment,” said a resident of New Jersey.

“My sister in India booked my father’s three-month supply of medicine through the couriers quite ahead of time, but due to the lockdown in Chennai, the shipment never moved out on time. Now it has been couriered through DHL and we came to know it is waiting for Customs clearance in the US. Not sure when would they be delivered,” recounted an IT professional.

This is typically true for the immigrant families who are stuck with parents or siblings visiting them.

“We have been hearing many such stories where the medicines are not reaching on time and so we had taken the hard decision of sending our parents, both over 70 years, back to India in the Vande Bharat Mission flights that did work to be expensive. They had to go through tough travelling conditions of wearing masks, and sitting tight through the flight journey and had to go through the 14 days’ quarantine on their return. It all ended nicely that they are now safe in their home back in Thirunelvelli,” said a resident of New Jersey.

“Though the cost of this trip and the stress for my parents through the travel period and the fear of what if they become COVID positive during the travel all were weighing heavy, we are glad they are safe now. Given their health condition, if their medicines did not reach us on time, we might have had a tougher situation to face,” she added.

“The medicines shipped need to have proper documentation, the purchase bills, prescription and the purpose for which they are taken etc. So we provided all that was asked for when we couriered the medicines from India. Despite this detailed documentation, they were detained for Custom’s clearance in the US. We received a call saying that we had to provide the manufacturing company’s name and address for each drug. We had to collect these from the pharmacy that sold these. Though these were printed on the drugs, we had not had it recorded earlier. If we had prior knowledge about these procedures we could have planned well. These medicines have to pass through FDA clearance before reaching us. We keep checking the tracking code for updates,” said Srinivas, a resident of New Jersey.

There are also cases where the shipment has reached within a week. For instance, “my parent’s medicines arrived in just four days,” said a resident in California.

Clearly, there is uncertainty in the timeline. Particularly understandable is the situation as we have more packages being shipped. Also, with less manpower available for work across the businesses, the delay is furthered.

Some resort to local doctors to prescribe medication for the temporary period. They not only are expensive compared to being bought from India, but these also may not be the exact medication as the Indian ones. The alternate drugs with the same composition may not be comfortable for many.

“My mother was so bothered to take the alternate medicines for her blood pressure, that the very thought pushed her BP higher than normal,” said a resident of Connecticut.

Interestingly, many local couriers in India do the service of collecting prescriptions directly from those in the US and arrange for medicines themselves and ship the parcel through the DHL or FedEx services. Many social media groups share contacts of these service providers which is like God sent for families who have no extended families to purchase and organise the shipment. Particularly when the pandemic lockdown in India prevents people from moving out, the services of these kinds are really appreciated. Unfortunately, when the shipment does not reach on time it becomes frustrating to many.

True, at a time when the pandemic is chasing us, the woes of these people are just a drop in the ocean of things to worry about. Yet the shivers it sends to the Indian immigrant families with old parents visiting them is beyond words to explain.

— The writer is a journalist based in New York