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IV fluids used in hospitals are still in short supply after Hurricane Helene shut down a key North Carolina factory that makes them. The closure has put hospitals in crisis mode and some patients in limbo, as NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin reports.
SYDNEY LUPKIN, BYLINE: Katie Adase has been trying to get a diagnosis for her chronic pelvic pain for years. But so far, no doctor has been able to figure it out.
KATIE ADASE: I couldn't do laundry or walk to the grocery store or, like, even cook without having to then take three or four hours to lay in bed with a heating pad. So it's been really scary.
LUPKIN: The 26-year-old biologist eventually got referred to a physician who specializes in endometriosis. By the time she got the appointment, though, she had moved across the country. Diagnosing the cause of her symptoms required a surgery. The procedure was scheduled for early October. She and her husband flew back to West Virginia a few days before the pre-op appointment. While they were there, Hurricane Helene hit. Four days before the scheduled surgery, a nurse called. The surgery was canceled because they didn't have enough IV fluids.
ADASE: I was having such a hard time processing what she was even saying to me that I was just really quiet.
LUPKIN: Her diagnosis would have to wait. That's a problem for patients around the country in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The storm flooded a Baxter International factory in North Carolina that was making 60% of the national supply of IV fluids. Hospitals have had to adjust by conserving IV fluids for the neediest patients. Often, that means asking emergency room patients to drink a Gatorade or a Pedialyte instead of getting an IV, but it also means canceling scheduled surgeries and procedures.
CHRIS DERIENZO: This shortage is still touching nearly every hospital in the country. Now, I've talked to hospitals coast-to-coast, border-to-border, all over the country who are needing to engage in those kinds of measures.
LUPKIN: That was Dr. Chris DeRienzo, chief physician executive of the American Hospital Association. The surgeries most likely to be postponed or canceled includes certain bladder surgeries, which require a lot of IV fluids, some heart procedures, orthopedic surgeries and things like Katie Adase's diagnostic surgery. But it varies from hospital to hospital. At Mass General Hospital in Boston, Dr. Paul Biddinger has handled disaster preparedness for more than two decades. He says the IV fluid shortage is a crisis.
PAUL BIDDINGER: We have activated our emergency operations plan for the system, and we've been in that mode now for weeks - last couple weeks. And that is an all-hands-on-deck. It's the same thing we do for a hurricane or the Boston Marathon bombing or COVID.
LUPKIN: He said his hospital has been able to reduce IV fluid use by 50%, but it has taken a huge effort, and procedures still get pushed off. When it's a knee or hip replacement surgery that gets canceled, sometimes the patient has been waiting months already, and rebooking can take time.
BIDDINGER: And so they're in pain. They're at risk of falling. There are very real consequences to patients and their families.
LUPKIN: Things are getting better, as Baxter and the government work to bridge the supply gap while the North Carolina factory is cleaned up for reopening in phases, but it will take time for that supply to hit hospital loading docks. Baxter says it hopes to resume some production of the highest-priority IV fluids very soon and is ahead of schedule. Some patients NPR spoke to say their canceled surgeries have since been rescheduled and happened without incident. As for Katie Adase in West Virginia, her surgery has been rescheduled for November 1.
ADASE: So that leaves me to, you know, fix up all of my logistics. So I'm racking up medical debt. I'm racking up debt from traveling. I'm feeling guilty that, you know, my husband took off work for nothing.
LUPKIN: She says she's lucky to have the support system she has, but patients are paying a price even if things work out in the end.
Sydney Lupkin, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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