I recall the day that we were told that my child would need a life-saving liver transplant after his liver failed after getting the flu. The nurse was standing outside of the pediatric intensive care unit with a clipboard in her hand. After asking if we were the parents, she quickly told us the news that in order for my child to survive we would need to add his name onto the transplant list as 80% of his liver had failed.
"If you decide to put him on the list, he will need to be on medications for the rest of his life, and we would need to know quickly."
For us, there wasn't a second thought. Whatever we had to do to save my child's life would be worth every sacrifice. Two days later our child received a life-saving liver transplant.
Never would I ever have dreamed that this transplant journey would land us here fighting simply to ensure safe access to the medications that his life depends upon by begging and demanding that we are not forced to a mail-order pharmacy that risks lives with delays and places his critical life-saving medications in only a bag inside of a 150-degree truck or mailbox, knowing that his life will be at risk as the manufacturer of the medications has stated that it is unsafe to do so. Finding out the hard way that the FDA and State Boards of Pharmacy fail to regulate mail order pharmacy has been one of the most difficult parts of this transplant journey.
From the day that we received the call informing us that our son would receive his gift of life, we understood the gift that we had been given. We will not take his life and the gift of life from the 3-year old little girl whose family gave at the worst of times for granted. We will not accept being forced to risk his life for the profits of a billion-dollar industry.
How can they do this to people? Where is the justice for the many who have been forced to risk their lives? How do our legislators overlook this?
We need help and our supporters give us hope that together we will change the future of pharmaceutical care!
Hearing the patients' stories from the petition over the last 2 years has been difficult yet motivating. The fight will continue and not just for just Wesley but for everyone.
We are going to win safe access to medications and safer medication handling, or I'll spend my lifetime fighting alongside our supporters.
Thank you for your support!
Loretta Boesing
Founder of Unite for Safe Medications