The Georgia pharmacists who need your help

When’s the last time you had to hand-write your labels? Or run your practice without Internet — or without power or even a working phone?

That’s what’s facing your colleagues in South Georgia in the wake of Hurricane Michael. It may be out of the headlines, but the devastation is still on the ground.

The Georgia Pharmacy Foundation has set up a fund to help GPhA members in South Georgia who are trying to keep their practices open while they wait for help — and for the towns around them to be repaired. Many of them have suffered damage to both their homes and pharmacies.

Yet they are standing by their patients.

Please help by donating the the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation Hurricane Michael Relief Fund. 100 percent of your (tax-deductible) donation will go to help Georgia pharmacists affected by the hurricane.

GPhA’s Rhonda Bonner visited the area last week and saw the damage. Donalsonville, especially, was hit hard.

Scott Hartzog’s Seminole Hartzog Pharmacy lost its roof — adding insult to injury, it’s lying in the road next to the pharmacy. Electricity and phone service was out. Scott’s home was also severely damaged, but he’s at the pharmacy, running a generator and filling scripts as best he can.

That means handwriting prescription labels — there aren’t any typewriters around any more — and saving the paperwork (emphasis on paper) to submit to insurance companies. Community comes first.

“I need to take care of my patients,” he said. “I really haven’t had time to absorb everything that’s happened.”

He went on, “I’m so overwhelmed. I have have no Internet, phone, or fax. I lost my roof. It’s lying in the road outside the store. I lost so much personal property, but need to take care of my patients. I really haven’t had time to absorb everything that’s happened.”

Then he went back to the line of patients who were waiting for their medication.

While Roberts Pharmacy, owned by Susan Mills, didn’t suffer the kind of structural damage that Seminole Hartzog did, Susan is just as overwhelmed. She’s also running a generator (as long as she can get fuel), and her daughter Mary, also a pharmacist, was able to hook up a label printer to their computer — even if it’s not hooked up to the Internet.

Still, she can’t fill prescriptions the way she normally would. Instead, she’s keeping a written record of what’s she’s filled and for whom. Patients, she said, need their medication — they can’t wait until she’s reconnected with the insurance companies. Instead, Susan’s hoping her records will be enough to be reimbursed by those insurers once they’re back online. (Nor is she charging patients any co-pays. She’s hoping they’ll come back and pay that part, but so many have lost their homes she’ll understand if they can’t.)

“We are hoping we will be able to recoup some,” said Mary, “[We’re hoping] that the insurance will go through for the patients who have it.”

Adding to Susan and Mary’s workload is the fact that the Fred’s Pharmacy in town has not opened, so they’re filling scripts for those patients as well. “We’re dispensing meds to other stores’ patients because we know these folks need their medicine,” Susan said. “We are here to help our community, and this community needs a lot of help right now.”

“This community is in bad shape right now,” Mary said. “We feel blessed that we had no more damage than we did here at our store. We are doing what needs to be done and we’re praying for the best.”

These are two of the stories. There are others GPhA members in Southwest Georgia that we simply haven’t been able to reach yet.

Michael was an unprecedented storm for the state — the strongest hurricane to hit Georgia since record-keeping began and the first major hurricane to hit the state since the 1800s.

Pharmacists like Scott Hartzog and Susan Mills need your help. Please give to the Hurricane Michael Relief Fund. Help those pharmacists — and those communities — get back on their feet. 100% of your donation will go to GPhA/AIP members in the area.