As the American Hospital Association is requesting an emergency declaration from the federal government concerning a shortage of IV fluids, area hospitals have begun reporting their saline solution inventories to the Ohio Department of Health on a daily basis.
Amid these elevated concerns, a B. Braun Medical manufacturing plant aimed at helping to alleviate the national IV fluid shortage, is located just north of the projected path of Hurricane Milton in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Eighty-five percent of the solutions used in Ohio were derived from the Baxter International manufacturing plant in Marion, N.C., which closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, according to the Ohio Association of Hospitals. Baxter reported Monday that several of its global plants are ramping up production to help meet needs in the United States. The company has not yet released a timeline on when manufacturing in Marion will resume.
“While the shortage is scary and also highlights how easily the supply chain can be disrupted by natural disaster, physicians and pharmacists have been through this before and know how to handle the disruption,” said Lauren Nicole Maziarz, an associate professor of public health at Bowling Green State University.