Utah mom helps others get access to children’s medicine amid empty store shelves

SALT LAKE CITY — Anyone with a sick baby or child right now has probably experienced how hard it is to find medicine like children’s Tylenol or Ibuprofen. And with holiday hours an extra hurdle, helping sick kids can become a hopeless hunt.

“I know a lot of moms are having a hard time, like friends keep posting, ‘Has anyone seen anything?'” said mom Amanda Ebmeyer, of Pleasant Grove.

Both of her children became ill while on their family vacation in California. She almost ended up in the same boat as her friends who have been posting on Facebook.

“It’s heartbreaking to hear them crying in pain, and you don’t even have the medicine to help them,” she said of her kids.

Ebmeyer considered going to urgent care Sunday — Christmas Day — but realized places were closed.

Luckily, she had just found children’s Tylenol in stock in California one day prior. Ebmeyer asked her husband to check the medicine aisle on a trip to Target to see what they had. Turned out, they had the medicine on their shelves that people have been searching everywhere for.

With so many kids sick, some Utah pharmacies run out of liquid Tylenol, ibuprofen

Knowing parents in Utah haven’t been able to find anything, she posted in a Facebook group geared toward Utah parents and several people immediately replied to make orders.

“Everyone is like, ‘Get me one! Get me one!’ We all have sick babies, and it’s so hard to see your kids sick and not be able to help them,” she said.

She knows how crucial that medicine is in helping manage fevers and symptoms and keeping kids out of the doctor’s office during a busy time of year. Ebmeyer said she works in an urgent care and the waits have been long.

When she makes the drive back to Utah, Ebmeyer will be bringing back some much-needed relief for kids — and their parents. She said she’s already arranged deliveries to a few people.

Ebmeyer is hoping others will do the same and post what they’re seeing in stores so that parents can find the medicine they’re looking for.

“I pray a lot for the opportunity to help other people. And when I saw the Tylenol, I was like, ‘This is one way I can help in a small way,'” Ebmeyer said. “So, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything courageous or great, I’m just helping another mom that needs help.”