Florida veteran struggled to get medicine for days after Hurricane Ian
Some Florida residents had trouble accessing medication and health care after Hurricane Ian due to doctors office closures and long emergency wait times.
Roy Key was in too much pain to come to the phone on Wednesday.
A week earlier, Hurricane Ian had torn through Fort Myers, Florida, where he lives, leaving homes flooded, knocking out power and sewage, and disrupting water lines.
Key, an 87-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran, takes morphine to cope with pain from a broken hip and fractured femur — the result of a fall in July — and an old shoulder injury from his service. But the Veterans Affairs clinic in Lee County, where he normally receives care, sustained major damage from the storm and remains closed.
That forced Key and his wife, Sara, to navigate bureaucracies of the VA health care system that they would not have had to face otherwise.
Sara said she wasn't able to get hold of Roy's doctor after the storm, and that left Roy "missing two of the most important medicines that he takes." The second prescription, pregabalin, is for nerve pain.
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