California Providers Go Above and Beyond in Responding to Massive Fires

SAN DIEGO–Wildfires fanned by ferocious winds charred much of
Southern California last week, leaving behind death and massive
destruction–and stories of efforts by home medical equipment
providers to care for their patients.

In San Diego, even as their own location was threatened, Apria
employees managed to deliver hundreds of products, including
oxygen, to patients before having to flee the area themselves. In
Santa Clarita, Shield Healthcare staff tracked down shipments of
vital enteral nutrition products and delivered them to patients who
had been displaced. In Santa Monica, Wishing Well Medical staff
ramped up oxygen deliveries to those severely affected by the
choking smoke and provided oxygen to patients who had been
evacuated from their Malibu homes to lodging in hotels.

San Diego manufacturer SeQual Technologies loaned 35 of its
Eclipse units to evacuees at the city’s QualComm stadium–and sent
a manager to train people on using the portable oxygen
concentrator.

The fires, the first of which started in Malibu on Sunday, Oct.
21, raged across the southern part of the state and along the
Mexican border, consuming more than a half-million acres and
reducing about 2,000 homes to ashes. More than 500,000 people were
evacuated from their homes; others experienced lengthy power
outages brought on by the Santa Ana winds, which in some
mountainous areas reached 100 mph.

As of Friday, seven people had died in the fires, and damage
estimates topped $1 billion.

For HME providers in the affected areas, concerns centered on
taking care of patients.

“We service more than 20,000 patients in the areas impacted by
the fires, most of whom have been directly affected in some way,
either by being displaced or having extreme smoke conditions around
their home,” said Apria’s Steve Foreman, regional vice president of
operations for Southern California, who coordinated the response
from the company’s 22 branch locations affected by the fires.

Apria implemented its disaster preparedness plan, which calls
for contacting all critical care patients throughout the area. “We
reviewed the evacuation shelter list and equipment needs with them,
such as assessing the status of their back-up batteries and
portable suction units. Then we contacted or attempted to reach all
respiratory patients to make sure that they had adequate supplies
until we could get to them,” Foreman said.

At Apria’s Riverside branch, which services many patients in the
fire-stricken mountain community of Lake Arrowhead, “we did a
pretty good job of reaching everyone,” said branch manager Diana
Castro. “We told them to take as much equipment as they could–but
safety first–and whatever they didn’t have, we’d take care of
them.”

One man who had been evacuated called the office in a panic.
He’d fled with his CPAP but had forgotten his mask. “How am I going
to sleep tonight?” he asked.

“You’re going to come here and we’re going to take care of you,”
was the reply. The man was given a mask.

At the San Diego Apria location, the situation was even more
dire. “Our San Diego staff worked through the night to ensure that
all deliveries were made and patients had an emergency contact,”
Foreman said. “This included making over 375 deliveries on Monday
before our branch was given a mandatory evacuation order by fire
authorities.”

Forced to leave their business location, employees kept on,
however. “Even though we had to close our San Diego office, we were
able to handle our site, and we were still able to handle the phone
calls,” Foreman said, noting that Apria uses a Nextel communication
system that allowed continued tracking of patients.

The San Diego fire even affected Apria’s Tustin branch. An
assisted living facility in Laguna Hills had contacted Apria for
help. The facility had a sister complex in San Diego that needed to
be evacuated. Patients would be transported to the Laguna Hills
site, but they needed beds. Could Apria provide those beds?

“At first, I wasn’t sure if we could fit the delivery into our
schedule given the magnitude of the emergency facing our existing
patients, but as soon as I mentioned it to my team, they wanted to
help,” said Foreman.

Tustin’s branch manager, Kris Fishman, and his team took on the
job. In three-and-a-half hours on Monday morning, he and four other
employees assembled 30 beds; 15 others were ready to go. “We went
down there and took care of it,” Fishman said, adding that his team
not only delivered the beds but prepared the rooms for the
evacuated patients.

“The drivers delivered the beds well into the night and the
patients were all transferred safely and without incident,” Foreman
said, noting that without the help of Fishman and his team, those
patients might have had to be hospitalized or sent to an emergency
room.

So many Apria patients were affected in the eastern part of San
Diego County that the company staffed an Escondido shelter with a
logistics manager and equipment to help its patients as well as
some who were originally serviced by other providers, officials
said. Ironically, Apria’s own headquarters in Lake Forest were
evacuated.

Meanwhile, in Santa Clarita, Paul Collins, director of client
services for Shield Healthcare, found his corporate headquarters in
the center of three fires. Forty to 50 percent of his workforce
couldn’t get to the office either because of road closures,
evacuations or because all daycare services were closed.

“The good news is, we have a solid workforce of people who
really care about our patients,” he said, and everyone who could
get there was there, willing to work the phones.

Because Shield handles ostomy and incontinence supplies, enteral
nutrition and some wound care products that are regularly shipped
directly to the patient, employees needed to ensure that those
shipments had reached their destinations. “They really allow our
customers to live their lives at home; without our products, they
have to go to the hospital,” Collins said.

Even as the flames flared visibly outside their windows, Shield
employees tracked down and reshipped the vital products, Collins
said. Sadly, he said, some of the original shipments had been lost
along with the patients’ homes.

In Santa Monica, Donny Albrecht, vice president of Wishing Well
Medical, sought to get oxygen to Malibu patients who had been
evacuated and also worked to care for those who live in Santa
Monica.

“The air quality for people on oxygen is really tough for them,”
he said about the acrid smoke that lay heavy over the area. “It’s
increasing their need for oxygen.”

It was also sparking a run on masks, he said, as healthy people
sought to protect their lungs from the smoke-polluted air.

But even as the inferno raged, there were some heartening
times.

“We had many people who called to see how our employees were
doing,” Collins said. “That really lifted their spirits and kept
them motivated.”

For his part, Foreman, who was once a firefighter, said, “I am
so proud of our entire Southern California Apria team right now.
It’s the same kind of feeling I used to get when we beat back a
wildfire–to know we are helping people cope with this crisis makes
everyone feel good.”