Saline in an IV bag. Shutterstock image.
Lubbock continues to overcome problems from a nationwide saline shortage made worse when Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina two months ago, shutting down a facility making about 60 percent of saline used by American hospitals.
“Hospitals in Lubbock have been affected by the saline shortage,” said Aaron Davis, vice president of University Medical Center.
“Covenant Health, along with many other health care systems, experienced disruption to our IV fluid supply because of damage to the North Carolina Baxter facility from Hurricane Helene. Because of our focused conservation strategies, and the tremendous efforts by our physicians and care teams, we were able to meet the needs of our urgent and emergent patients during the shortage. We are grateful to our patients for their understanding while we navigate this unforeseen circumstance,” said Meredith Cunningham, Covenant’s senior media & community relations manager.
Last month, a Covenant press release said it was pausing many elective surgical procedures due to the issue. But they’ve been able to go ahead with some, Cunningham said this week.
Baxter provides Covenant and its parent company, Providence, with approximately 130 products including intravenous solutions to keep patients hydrated and peritoneal dialysis solutions (used to remove extra fluid from patients), according to the release.
There is a timeline for things to get better.
The Baxter website said, “While we currently expect that all lines will be restarted by the end of the year, we do not yet have a timeline for when we expect North Cove production to be fully restored to pre-hurricane levels.”
Two lines of products would start back up in early December but that does not include IV solutions, Baxter said.
UMC, like Covenant, made adjustments.
“Since the Baxter manufacturing plant in North Carolina was affected by Hurricane Helene, UMC has been implementing efforts to conserve saline as much as possible and not affect patient care. These efforts have included transitioning patients to oral medications and hydration as soon as possible as well as using alternative medications or fluids when possible. As Baxter has been able to make repairs to their plant as well as increased capacity at other manufacturing facilities, partial shipments have been begun to arrive over the past few weeks,” Davis added.
UMC will keep monitoring its saline inventory and patient care processes to address the supply-chain disruption, Davis said, adding a team of physicians, pharmacists and nurses are monitoring daily the conservation efforts and inventory.
According to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, Baxter is releasing groups of IV fluid bags manufactured before the hurricane containing a small number of bags with leaks.
“Because there are just a small number of bags in each impacted lot that may experience this defect, these lots are being released with instructions for health care professionals to screen the bags for leaks prior to use and to discard IV fluid bags that have any evidence of leakage. Any leak would most likely be presented as an obvious defect before handling, and/or would present itself as an obvious defect once pressure is applied,” the FDA said.
Covenant’s mid-October press release also said its saline shortage was exacerbated by UMC’s recent ransomware attack.
“Covenant Health’s supply of IV fluid was more quickly depleted this past month due to the influx of patients we encountered from the UMC ransomware attack. We have asked several local facilities for support in sharing their supply, but apart from Lubbock Heart Hospital, many were unavailable to provide fluids at this time,’ according to the release.
UMC announced in late October that its operations had largely returned to normal after the ransomware incident which was discovered in late September.
Lubbock Lights reached out to other medical facilities in Lubbock and the South Plains to comment on this story, but they declined.
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