Shortages across the country worry medical providers.

With the extreme cold weather and financial crises that Dead End finds ourselves in,many locals are not getting proper medical care this year, and that includes flu shots, with Dead End’s citizens complaining of record numbers of  influenza.  Add to the already taxed need for simple items like IV saline the weather’s impeding shipping lanes and the Dead End Memorial Hospital  is in trouble. Running short on items ranging from IV saline solution  to Epinephrine, Morphine as well as Tetracycline, which is used to treat bacterial infections including pneumonia and other respiratory tract infections, though the IV saline seems to hit the hardest as it is most widely used.

Since mid-January, the FDA has received notices from “dozens of hospitals” each week about low supplies of IV saline, an inside source reported. High demand for IV saline has been prompted in part by a spike in flu cases in recent weeks. Many flu patients who are dehydrated need intravenous saline. Frustration over the shortage prompted Dr. Garrett Winsmore, Chief of Medicine for DEHM,  to consider asking the government to release saline from its emergency stockpiles, though thus far no aid has been sent.

As supplies get lower and lower the DEMH has been reduced to rationing things like IV saline. The hospital typically uses 280 cases a month of IV saline, with each case containing 14 one-liter bags.  On Friday the hospital had only about a five-day supply left. Winsmore asked doctors to use 500-milliliter bags, among other steps, and as a result cut usage by about one-third.

By Sunday, however, “we were again looking at shelves getting empty,” he said. He sent out another notice about conservation. And then on Tuesday, he received a shipment of 50 cases of saline, about a week’s supply which they plan to continue the rationing to stretch as far as they can.   Dr. Winsmore said patient care has not been affected. But the health system is using smaller saline bags, looking for alternative IV solutions when possible, and reallocating saline across its system based on need.  Further discussion on a Flu Shot clinic to possibly be sponsored by local businesses in an effort to combat the illness preemptively has been discussed.

Kahlen Vaniva, DE Daily Editor & Reporter