Hurricane aftermath factor in medical supply shortage at local hospital

As Puerto Rico recovers from the September hit of Hurricane Maria, hospitals in the U.S. are still feeling the impact and a local hospital is no exception.

According to the Federal Drug Administration, the U.S. territory produces an estimated $40 billion in pharmaceuticals, including medical supplies, but the aftermath of the hurricane has slowed, even stopped, manufacturers from continuing production.

University Medical Center’s pharmacy director, Myron Lewis, said the hospital is working around a shortage in intravenous therapy, or IV solution, IV bags and other medications.

“I thought it would have been a lot better by now, but it certainly hasn’t been,” Lewis said.

The hospital uses about 2,000 IVs on a daily basis.

Lewis said there are only three major manufacturers of IV solution because many pharmaceutical companies have been consolidated so options are limited.

“When you take out one-third of the volume of the IVs it impacts everybody because everybody starts trying buy them, ” Lewis said.

UMC spokesman, Ryan Mielke, said the hospitals across the nation are seeing a shortage in IV bags because many of them buy from a specific manufacturer.

While UMC does not purchase from that company, a secondary shortage is affecting UMC because of demand.

In a statement to ABC-7, a spokeswoman for Las Palmas Del Sol Healthcare said the hospitals made adjustments and the shortage has not affected patient care.

Lewis said UMC patients should not be worried because there are alternatives solutions that provide the same level of care.

There has been a slight increase in production, but Lewis said it’s not happening fast enough.

“The problem is most of these manufacturers run their pointance of 90 to 100 percent capacity to be productive, so they don’t have a lot of leeway to increase production,” Lewis said.

He added it appears it’s going to be a long-term project to get manufacturers up and running in Puerto Rico.

Lewis said having to buy IVs from different distributors and manufacturers “does increase our cost.”