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COVID-19 has left parts of Southend battling against long post delays with a mum revealing she now has to order medication a month in advance.
Thousands of residents have battled delays with at least four Southend postcodes impacted, Melanie Starbrook, from Shoebury, orders her regular medication from Pharmacy2U, delivered by the Royal Mail and was left waiting for weeks over Christmas.
She is now placing orders in advance to make sure they reach her in time.
Melanie said: “We have our medication delivered by Pharmacy2U which is delivered by Royal Mail and I was waiting for my medication which was ordered before Christmas and I got it the third week of January. I had to ring them up to get another order out because they didn’t come in time.
“I was told that there was a big back log of people not getting their medication because of delays.
“We’re having to order a lot quicker. You wait until you have two weeks to go but now we’re having to order three or four weeks before we order it to make sure we get it.
“Over this period it has taken longer to get them.”
But Melanie insists that she’s not blaming Royal Mail for the delays after their struggle with staff self-isolating due to Covid.
She added: “I believe the Royal Mail staff are off self isolating so to be honest you can’t really complain too much.”
Royal Mail admitted the delays have been caused due to staff self-isolating after either testing positive for Covid or coming into contact with someone who has, and social distancing guidelines meaning deliveries are taking longer.
Southend residents living in SS0 and SS1-4 are being the hardest hit in the area but are being understanding of the difficulties faced by Royal Mail workers.
Louisa Wright of Esplanade Gardens also saw a delay in her post.
She said: “We didn’t have post for several days and then it all turned up on Monday.
“I had a whole heap of post arrive and I had noticed I hadn’t had post for several days.
“There’s nothing negative from my end, there was just a delay in post for about four days.”
On their website, Royal Mail said: “Due to resourcing issues, associated self-isolation and safety measures, deliveries in the following areas are likely to be disrupted this week.
“We’re sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.
“We’re working hard to deliver as comprehensive a service as possible with the resource available to support these offices. And we’re ensuring we prioritise delivery of vaccination letters.”
