Behind Every Phone Call: TFC’s Extraordinary Work in Extraordinary Times

Serving clients at TFC has grown only more complex in these challenging times. It was Friday at 2:30 , after a long week when a worker in our TPLW program made a routine check-in call to a client, as we have since the pandemic began. The worker, Douglass Moss, learned that the client in East New York had run out of his vital HIV medications a week ago.  He had gone to his usual clinic, a well-known community facility, but found it gated and boarded up “with some signs about COVID.”  He had tried to call reception, then his own doctor, but none answered. When we called that Friday afternoon, he had already missed seven days of a vital medication he takes daily. Douglass offered TFC’s own pharmacy service, the client said yes, and our team swung into action. 

One worker coordinated with the pharmacy, who agreed to order and fill the prescription that day as soon as they received a prescription. Another sought out a new HIV doctor to write the prescription. For an hour, two team members called several doctors, but none would prescribe without seeing the client and awaiting blood tests. Switching strategies, the team located an urgent care near the client, that was also in the same network as his prior clinic, so they might have access to his past records. Success! By 4:30, they agreed to write the prescription – if the client came in to be seen. 

But the immunocompromised client feared going out due to COVID.  So, our team dispatched a TFC driver, who had COVID two months ago, and is now recovered.  At 5:00, he picked up the client at his residence, both masked, and drove him the 20 minutes to urgent care. Each step was complicated because the client‘s cell phone wasn’t working, so we had to relay messages through the driver’s phone and calls to the urgent care staff.  Then bad news came from the pharmacy:  they would close early, at 6:00, due to mounting demonstrations in Bed Stuy. That left 45 minutes. We called the urgent care back, asking the client to call from the office phone the minute their doctor filed the prescription. At 5:50 the pharmacist got it and we headed over, but heavy traffic now blocking the area made it impossible to reach the pharmacy by 6:00. Another call, and they agreed to leave the meds secured with the cleaning staff, providing 15 extra minutes. At 6:11 a TFC worker pulled up, ran out, scooped up $3,800 worth of lifesaving meds and the car rolled out on what we thought was the final lap. 

Again, staff called urgent care to inform the client that a car was coming with the meds, to stay put, and we would get there as soon as traffic allowed. But due to increasing traffic and police blockades, the ride from Bed Stuy to East New York took an hour. On the way, we coordinated the same driver to meet him at urgent care, and bring him home safe with his valuable meds. At 7:20, the neighborhood roiling around us, we pulled up at the urgent care in East New York with our lifesaving cargo in one car and his driver in the other.  

But the client was gone. He had left 10 minutes before, either impatient or confused. Urgent care staff had no idea where he was. We had no way to reach him.  Calls to his housing facility went unanswered. In exactly five hours since his call, a team of two TFC workers, a pharmacist, two doctors, the urgent care staff and two drivers had worked in synchrony to deliver lifesaving meds. Yes, we had found him a new doctor and vital meds, mobilized care and deliveries, but we weren’t done. As night fell, we texted him to reassure him we had his meds. Saturday dawned, his phone charged, and that morning our worker met the client to hand him his pill bottles. It took a team and most of a day, but this client now he has a new doctor and a stable supply of his lifesaving medications.  And it all began with that phone call. 

-Dave Nimmons
HIV Treatment Education Manager & Founding Board Chair