Severe IV fluid shortage threatens hospital and health care in the US

P.S.
All of the links come up OK for me, if you cannot access a link because of a log in situation, please let me know and I will try to find an alternative.

Here are another couple of links showing the areas that the shortages impact :

[link to www.ashp.org]

[link to www.myfoxhouston.com]

There is a really good video on the second link. This problem was apparently precipitated by an "FDA inspection."

This is really a very serious problem in the US right now and most people are unaware of it.

Last Edited by emerald eye on 06/08/2014 12:27 PM

They could use coconut water! No kidding!

You can use coconut water for oral hydration, and it is great. As for IV use, coconut water sterile if it still in the coconut, and could (in theory anyway) be used from the coconut if you can puncture it with sterile equipment and use sterile tubing. The readily available stuff to drink could not be used for and IV substitute. It is great stuff, and I got a chuckle from you ingenuity. It could cause a coconut shortage however,

The gumment is buying it all up! They know something we don't. I think that is a sign that the end is near. If you don't have your preps together, you don't have much time. 5*

Yes, the government has "tampered" to create this problem, there is no other rational explanation. This was supposed to have gotten better months ago, and it has only gotten progressively worse. The question now is why?

Even if you don't think you will need surgery, a hospital, or even a clinic visit involving IV fluids, this could affect you because of the possible reasons behind it.


“A lot of variables came together to create this,” said Scott Crandall, director of medical supply contracts at Novation, a group buying organization in Texas that manages contracts for SF General and 2,000 other hospitals across the country. He’s been hearing from manufacturers that increased FDA scrutiny is interfering with drug production."

“I called up a clinical person that I knew, at like 11:30 at night and said, ‘Well, what happens if we run out of saline?’ Because I was really afraid,” he remembers. “And they were just like, ‘Yeah, it gets ugly, fast.’”


[link to blogs.kqed.org]

Unlike a lot of GLP fantasy threads (some of which I really enjoy), this is real information from the real world. Heads up people!

General anesthesia is also in short supply at hospital I am working for.

Thanks for the pin!

For anyone who wants the 60 second version of this story watch the video on this page:

[link to www.myfoxhouston.com]


Sorry I don't know how to embed it, but maybe someone else does.

There are so many commonly used drugs and products in short supply right now that it is downright scary. Hospitals, clinics, and paramedics all seem to be scrambling just to get basic supplies.

They're doing this on purpose and because its everyone's families really stand up and get mad and phone them until they get it.

LEGIO IV

There is simply none to be had. We have borrowed and begged, they won't even ship to clinics, and many hospitals are in really short supply. The supply was supposed to be better by now, and now they are saying it will extend into July with no real explanation and no promises.

They need to pull some of the millions of bags of it out of the government bunkers and put it back into circulation...we useless eaters are not dead yet...

Similar shortages on the veterinarian side, too. Ringers Lactate, especially. Makes it difficult for large animal (equine, bovine, etc.) practices to schedule surgeries and handle emergencies.

Excellent thread! I didn't think about it crossing over to human medicine, quite honestly. There are ebbs and flows in production vs consumption. It's beginning to sound as if there's a kink in the production pipeline and a snarl in the consumption pool.

My heart goes out to EMT and Triage personnel who have to make decisions on care solely based upon supplies.

The various reasons given for the shortage have been:

1. Flu season (long gone)
2. Increased demand (by who or what?)
3. FDA inspections (??)
4. FDA shutting down all three US manufactures at once due to contamination issues (???)
5. Aliens took all of it. (Just kidding, they haven't proposed that one yet!)


The bottom line: drink more water and stay hydrated this summer, and hope that you or a loved one doesn't need surgery, an ER visit or an ambulance. If you have pets keep them well hydrated as well as it sounds like vet supplies are also low. Normal saline is in the shortest supply, but as that dwindles, ringers lactate and other fluids being used to fill the gaps are also becoming in shorter supply.

"According to Scott Crandall, senior director of surgical and anesthesia sourcing operations at Novation, a healthcare supply chain, analytics and contracting company, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been attempting to ensure that adequate amounts of IV saline are reaching hospitals, including allowing the import of supplies from Norway and Spain. However, he doesn't see an immediate end in sight to the shortage. Crandall said the problem may not be resolved until the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015."

[link to www.healthcarefinancenews.com]

[link to www.jems.com]

Last Edited by emerald eye on 06/10/2014 01:14 AM

shortage of salt and water?

Yeah, this is not good.

We're seeing shortages in very fundamental areas. Areas that address the needs of war.


Not good.

Yes, you are quite correct. A competent pharmacist or chemist can compound the salt and water mixture, but nobody has done that for many years, and it would take a while to get up to speed on it. They used to hang glass bottles of the stuff in IV’s, as glass is easy to sterilize, but these are inconvenient for patient care and can break, producing dangerous glass shards. Now we have sterile plastic bags that are quite strong and usually don’t leak or break. We don’t have easy access the materials to make the large quantities required by most hospitals in house. You would need to pressure boil the water to sterile it from some pathogens, simple boiling would not be enough for IV use.

Here is the recipe:
“The solution is 9 grams of sodium chloride (NaCl) dissolved on water, to a total volume of 1000 ml. As 1 grams NaCl occupies 0.18 level teaspoons, 9 grams NaCl is 1.62 level teaspoons. The mass of 1 millilitre of normal saline is 1.0046 gram at 22 °C.[2][3] The molecular weight of sodium chloride is approximately 58.5 grams per mole, so 58.5 grams of sodium chloride equals 1 mole. Since normal saline contains 9 grams of NaCl, the concentration is 9 grams per liter divided by 58.5 grams per mole, or 0.154 mole per liter. Since NaCl dissociates into two ions – sodium and chloride – 1 molar NaCl is 2 osmolar. Thus, NS contains 154 mEq/L of Na+ and Cl−. It has a slightly higher degree of osmolarity (i.e. more solute per litre) than blood (However, if you take into account the osmotic coefficient, a correction for non-ideal solutions, then the saline solution is much closer to isotonic. Osmotic coefficient of NaCl is about 0.93; therefore 0.154 × 1000 × 2 × .93 = 286.44) Nonetheless, the osmolarity of normal saline is a close approximation to the osmolarity of NaCl in blood.”

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

The shortage speaks to supplies being diverted for anticipated mass casualty events, (war, martial law, civil unrest with riots and injury, many people infected with something) within two years of the beginning of the shortage in Dec 2012 to January 2013. Now the predictions are that the shortage will continue until 2015. Are 2014-2015 the pivotal years for something that is being anticipated?

That is why I wanted to get this information out to GLP. I have learned so much from all of you, I always feel honored to share what I know with GLP.

Last Edited by emerald eye on 06/10/2014 10:02 AM

all of the people complaining
about not having work
should jump on this story

more people must be in coma's and needing iv's constantly for months or years
they could be in suspended sleep
to keep them alive
until a cure can be found

Are you a medical worker - OP?

There are always drug shortages or one sort or another. They are tracked here:

[link to www.fda.gov]

Yes, and while I can tell you that many items are in short supply and have been for the past 2-3 years, this has a wider impact, so it is somewhat different. Shortages in medical supplies have become the "new normal".

Last Edited by emerald eye on 06/10/2014 10:05 AM

So what theyre saying is they cant get plastic bags, water and salt?

They're trying to kill you if thats the case.
A liter of this costs about 15 dollars, they charge 150 dollars and they say there isnt enough?

Theyre trying to kill you. Thats all

So what theyre saying is they cant get plastic bags, water and salt?

They're trying to kill you if thats the case.
A liter of this costs about 15 dollars, they charge 150 dollars and they say there isnt enough?

Theyre trying to kill you. Thats all

Excellent thread!!

Yep, I didn't think of it crossing over to the vet side until I ead about all the vet meds affecte, Deramax, interceptor, etc. Can't figure it. We have all speculated monetary to raise prices, but some of these products are not coming back. Sabotage? You have to dig for it, but the IV Heparin was in the end a bio terror deal, there was a state dept memo put out on it way back. I just happened to read it, no announcement was made, it was just stuck on a bulletin board.