When Hurricane Helene hit the eastern part of the United States last week, it forced Baxter International to shut down its North Cove plant in Marion, NC. The plant is the largest producer of intravenous and peritoneal dialysis solutions in the U.S. which is raising concerns about the supply of the product until the plant can reopen.
Locally, Baxter Health Director of Pharmacy Ryan Killian says the hospital sees shortages of the solution from time to time and they are prepared for it.
Listen:
TRANSCRIPT:
Baxter International is Baxter Health’s primary IV fluid supplier, and so we normally have shortages throughout the year, but they’re minor, and the North Cove facility that was currently closed down due to the hurricane is one of Baxter International’s main IV fluid facilities, and so this is probably going to have a longer, more extensive impact than a lot of the shortages we deal with.
You know, fortunately or unfortunately, we went through Hurricane Maria in 2017 and we were able to put in, uh, some conservation and mitigation strategies from what we learned, uh, from that experience. And so, currently we keep a one month supply of fluids, IV fluids, under normal circumstances at all times and once we put some conservation strategies in place, hopefully we can extend that out, uh, you know, a few days as well.
And we’re also utilizing all of our resources right now. We’re purchasing IV fluids from, um, multiple vendors and, and other sources that we don’t normally use. But it’s, right now it’s affecting, um, most of our IV fluids that we use and, um, As of right now, we’ve been placed on a 40 percent allocation from Baxter from what we normally order.
Killian says if the Baxter plant in North Carolina is down for an extended period, they should be able to purchase the solution from other suppliers.
Listen:
TRANSCRIPT:
Well, unlike Hurricane Maria, right now, uh, most of the other, uh, IV fluid manufacturers are in pretty good shape as far as supply, so we’re hopefully going to utilize them. Uh, obviously, Like I said, we’ve got some stock already, in place to at least one month’s worth. So, like I said, I think we can extend that out.
And we’re expecting minimal impact right now. Our goal, obviously, is to, for everybody to sti ll have access to all of our services,that we normally offer for the foreseeable future. And we think we’ve done a pretty good job minimizing the impact, currently. And obviously things are subject to change,but right now we, we feel like we’re in pretty good shape.
Killian says they have procedures and conservation plans in place to have minimal impacts to Baxter Health patients.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI