Pharmacies Struggle Amid California Wildfires, Continue to Provide Much Needed Medication to Patients

The California wildfires have created immense challenges for local pharmacies, who are working tirelessly to ensure patients can access vital medications. Pharmacies in the affected areas describe the chaotic situation, with some locations facing power outages, internet disruptions, and even looting. Despite these obstacles, the pharmacies have stepped up, coordinating with the Board of Pharmacy to streamline emergency medication overrides and deliveries. Many patients have been displaced, leaving their homes with few belongings, and the pharmacies have become a crucial lifeline, transferring prescriptions and even delivering directly to relocated care facilities. Beyond medications, the pharmacies are also supporting the broader community's immediate needs for food, water, and other supplies. Ken Thai, PharmD, CEO of the 986 Pharmacy, discusses his first-hand experiences and what his pharmacies are doing to help those impacted.

California Wildfire, Pharmacy, Community | Image Credit: Erin | stock.adobe.com

Pharmacy Times®: What does the situation look like as of now? Have there been any improvement in the situation?

Ken Thai, PharmD: There's been a lot of improvement, I think, definitely compared to last week. It was just, quite frankly, chaos. I think the one thing that came to mind was almost like Armageddon or something because I lived literally right at the foothill of where the Altadena fires were located near Pasadena. And when I looked to my left from my office, it was just a, quite frankly, just flames and just like the mountain, [it] seemed like the whole mountains on fire, and about maybe 5 minutes from where I was at and, of course, that was the evening before when it all came to just happened, like literally, almost instantaneous. I remember being outside and it was windy at around maybe 6 o'clock, and then around 6:30 I heard that everything was essentially on fire, and we had to potentially evacuate from my house, which is we're living literally just a couple of minutes from sort of the source of the fire in the Eaton Canyon area. Going back to your question, we we're much better at this point. There's still, obviously, a lot of areas that are still powerless. Our pharmacies, for example, multiple locations actually still don't have power. A few of them got their power back. Some have power but no Internet, and some have internet but no power, and some have neither. So I think that's definitely slowly but surely coming back. So just 1 location, right at the heart of Altadena, technically, where the fire's at, is the only one that's technically still out of power and still running off of generators.

Pharmacy Times: How have various pharmacies been impacted by the wildfires? What are some of the needs of those businesses?

Thai: I think right now, we're okay. I think the key part initially was getting overrides for all emergency fills. We've had, the ones that are open, have had a huge surge of prescriptions coming in from multiple other locations that are still closed, and they're closed because there was just no power, right? And so it's been just, quite honestly, a little bit of a mess. Because when you have no power, it's not just that you can't open, there's also refrigerated items you need to be cautious about. And then also, unfortunately, there's a second wave of looting. As a matter of fact, one of the pharmacy locations that we're having, Arcadia, got broken into the night after the fires, and we didn't have power at the time, so, it was just kind of a little bit crazy. I haven't heard as much of that, but of course, unfortunately, there are bad characters out there on the prowl, trying to take advantage of the situation. But for us, we've just been trying to keep going as independent pharmacies. We're [a] very integral part of this community. We've wanted to do whatever we can to support patients out there, transferring in a lot of new patients because they just can't have access to their meds. We also serve some of the skilled nursing facilities. One of the ones we serve literally got burned down completely, so all their patients got relocated to the Pasadena Convention Center, and so we've had to deliver medications and supplies directly to the site. I mean, it's definitely a difficult time, and it just seems like we're constantly trying to work with the Board of Pharmacy as well to streamline, any of the needs that we might have to provide care for our patients.

Pharmacy Times: What are some of the pharmacy-related needs that people have?

Thai: A lot of them involve, quite frankly, just emergency supplies, and most of the patients that we've been talked to essentially just left. It was almost like at a minute's notice. They just left. They were freaked out. They were scared, and so basically, they left the house with basically a few documents and literally nothing else. A lot of the homes were burned, and these patients are coming to us basically having to get a complete set of meds. And so initially it was a little more difficult to get those emergency overrides. Thank God, that is sort of worked itself out and seemed like most of the insurances now have kind of opened up the channels of [pharmacy benefits managers] to allow for these emergency overrides for the medications. So that's been very helpful. Obviously, access to certain meds because some of the pharmacies were closed and they might have specific medications that we don't typically, work with, but that at least in the last few days, have been resolved as well, sort of slowly but surely. I mean the other issue is a lot of clinics were not were literally closed for the last 4 or 5 days, because they were also affected. So how do we go about if there's no refills? For example, how do we go about getting that approved right when the clinics are literally closed and not available? So we're trying to navigate all these different things, but thank God the community has been pretty supportive and understanding, and we just have had to, quite frankly, do anything necessary or possible to ensure the patients are okay, right? I think that the consensus amongst month to community is just let's do whatever it takes, right? Let's do whatever it takes to within our means to ensure that our patients are okay.

Pharmacy TImes: What are some ways that pharmacists—either locally or otherwise—can get involved to help those displaced/impacted by the wildfires?

Thai: At this point in time, I think they're, quite frankly, more community-based services that are available because, besides medications, obviously, there's been a lot of needs just basic stuff, like food, water, clothing, and I think that's probably has been the bigger focus for us is to provide the adjunct to to that, in terms of medications. We obviously offer delivery and whatnot. We've also got lots of calls coming in from all parts of the state, as well out of the state. I think at this point in time, I'm not sure what we can provide. Quite frankly, I think that might be at a higher level, through the board of pharmacies and through the various associations and whatnot, but it seems like it's more the immediate needs that have been requiring assistance, right? And I think we've had a local area right at the San Diego racetrack where, literally, that racetrack turned into just a hub where people weredonating water, clothes, shoes and whatnot, and whoever needed just literally went in there and just grab whatever they needed. I think that has been the bigger need and issue for us at this point in time. But the few pharmacies, or actually, I'd say majority of pharmacies, are still open, have been able to take on some of that burden of supporting some of those patients and emergency supply needs and whatnot. There has been, obviously, delays as well deliveries and things like that. But for the most part, we've been able to sort of handle it. I think at this point, I haven't heard any major issues in terms of supplies. It might have been a day or 2 late, but at least we're able to provide you know that the medications to our patients for the most part.