Hospital officials around the nation are working to preserve stocks of IV fluid as a facility that produces the country’s largest amount of fluid has been badly damaged during Hurricane Helene. Martha’s Vineyard Hospital is no exemption to conserving stock.
Leaders with Mass. General Brigham (MGB) — the parent company of the Vineyard hospital — updated reporters and the public on the region-wide shortage during a press conference Thursday.
“The impacts are shared across our whole system right now,” Paul Biddinger, Mass General Brigham chief preparedness and continuity officer said, noting the group’s smaller hospitals including MVH. “Every one of our hospitals is operating normally… They are trying to conserve but they are delivering care normally. If conservation strategies aren’t possible, we have IV fluids that will be administered.”
The shortage is the result of Hurricane Helen’s impact on Baxter Healthcare’s North Cove manufacturing site in North Carolina where water permeated the facility, temporarily shutting it down. It’s still unclear when it will reopen. Mass General will now be receiving 40 percent of what they normally would.
Baxter manufactures over 60 percent of IV fluid and other medical fluid capabilities for the country. The normal saline and lactated ringer solutions impacted by the storm are two of the most commonly used to rehydrate patients, help with surgery, and provide nourishment if a patient can’t eat or drink independently.
In response, the hospital is implementing conservation efforts, reserving IV fluids for clinically essential cases. If a patient is able to consume water or food orally then it is encouraged to help conserve.
Mass general has also established an incident management team and is using similar protocol to the measures taken in response to hurricane Maria in 2017, which caused a similar shortage for months. MGB was able to continue normal operations during the incident without canceling surgical procedures and they plan to do the same this time around.
While there are other distributors, Biddinger said, in the past, those distributors also limited their distributions to ensure they could meet their own demand.
Currently, MGB’s goal is to maintain clinical response of IV fluids for as long as possible though they don’t know how long that will be.
I am shocked that MGH Emergency/Preparedness Planning does not include “CONSEQUENCE” Management. After 9/11, then the Tsunami in Japan that knocked out supply chains and Covid many learned not to put all their eggs in one basket.
In this case be able to depend on Suppliers in different parts of the country for the same supplies so if one or more go down they orders can be increase with other suppliers.
Emergency/Consequence/Preparedness Planning may not be easy buy it is real and necessary.
Mass General Hospital in Boston is one of best examples of how it is done and their procedures are followed in Health Care around the World.
I am sure they will fix this quickly and it will not happen again.
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