Be Careful with Medical Supply Deliveries

newbride
newbride Member Posts: 142
edited March 2014 in Caregivers #1
Just a quick word of advice and note of what happened to us this week. The hospital has a medical supply company deliver feeding supplies for my husband (he was to get an IV pole, syringes to flush the tube, feeding bags and jevity 1.5). The delivery came but then they also shipped 2 cases of jevity by UPS. Well the boxes are ridiculously heavy and the UPS person would not carry them up to my 2nd floor condo so getting them upstairs was a chore in and of itself (I wasn't smart enough to think at the time to actually open the boxes and bring up what I could carry at a time). Anyway when I finally looked in the box they delivered Jevity 1.2 insteaf of 1.5 - about 150 difference in calories!!!

I called the company on Friday and told them to have one of their delivery people come get this and get me the correct stuff. Now mind you - I work in Consumer Relations so this is key here -- well the woman on the phone told me "we will send you a UPS label so you can ship it back" I explained to her that this would be impossible since I cannot carry these boxes to UPS so she tells me to haev UPS come to me which I explained to her that UPS will not come up and carry the boxes down. So she's like "Just put them outside for them" So I was like "what do you want me to do - push them down a flight of stairs to fall?" she's like No put outside - again I explained I was on a 2nd floor and when I open my door I see a flight of steps (duh).

We kept going back and forth on this and she told me that I was being difficult (oh she has not yet seen difficult). With that response I shot back at her with "Ok let me explain something here to you -- my husband has cancer, I don't know his prognosis or if he will make it to our first wedding anniversary, he is on a feeding tube and needs feeds that your company delivered and YOUR company delivered the wrong stuff, you want ME to carry 75 pound boxes down a flight of stairs to get it back to you when you have delivery people in my area, you haven't even apologized and YOUR mistake had I not discovered it could have seriously jeopardized my husbands health even more so than it is now and YOU have the nerve to call ME difficult?"

Well, after that she put me on hold and told me this one time only they will have someone come pick it up. Well that's fine but I still was annoyed and was planning on sending a letter to their management about how this was handled but in the meantiem I called the hospital to tell them because if this was an older person who didn't realize this could have been a huge issue. Well 1/2 hour later I got a call from the manager of customer service for the medical company and they told me that going forward nothing will be shipped to me via UPS that everythign will be hand delivered by their delivery service and all will be carried upstairs for me!!!!

Comments

  • sue Siwek
    sue Siwek Member Posts: 279
    see, being assertive and
    see, being assertive and trying not to be rude(hard sometimes) gets you what you want hoorah for you! use this often in any situation it will get results. i have learned through 9+ years of care giving that you have to tell people what it is you need because they cannot read minds and those who don't get it never will as the experience with the customer service person at ups illustrates.
  • MichelleP
    MichelleP Member Posts: 254
    Newbride
    I'm sooooo very proud of you! I'm sorry that you had to endure that experience and I understand more than you know how hard it is to deal with a ill husband and have things like this happen. You go girl!