Hospitals across the U.S. may face a reduced supply of intravenous (IV) fluids after Hurricane Helen flooded one of the country’s largest manufacturers of IV fluids.
Baxter International, a North Carolina-based health care and medical technology company, produces 1.5 million bags of IV fluid per day, according to the American Hospital Association.
The company was forced to halt production after Helen caused flooding on its premises.
The death toll from Hurricane Helen, which was later downgraded to a tropical storm, now stands at 217 in six states in the southeastern United States.
“We are working around the clock to assess the full scope of the impact and minimize potential supply disruptions to ensure patients and healthcare providers have the products they need,” Baxter International said in a statement Friday. We are continuing to work on this system.”
A hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, is already dealing with the impact of supply disruptions after being told by Baxter International that it would only receive 40% of its normal supply.
Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital responded by maintaining supplies and giving some patients Gatorade or plain water instead of IV fluids, NBC News reported.
The hospital said it wants to avoid disruption to patient care and has contingency plans in place.
IV fluids are used to deliver medications, fluids, or nutrients directly into a person’s veins.
The interruption of IV fluids comes as more than 800,000 people remain without power. Most of these people are in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, but there are also people affected in Florida and Virginia.
Other impacts of the storm include potential obstacles to early voting.
A South Carolina judge ruled Friday that voters will have an additional 10 days to register to vote in the election after storms devastated parts of the state with flooding and power outages. did.
The National Task Force on Election Crisis also discussed the storm’s impact on access to polling places in the upcoming presidential election.
Protect Democracy special counsel Anne Tyndall said at a briefing that some polling places in North Carolina no longer exist because of the storm.
She noted that several other locations have also been severely damaged and will require new sites or site consolidation to ensure voting continues.
Experts agreed that no matter what happened at the polling places, the storm would affect turnout.
Former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr predicted there would be “some degree” of a decline in voting in counties affected by the storm.
North Carolina is one of seven U.S. battleground states where either presidential candidate’s victory is considered crucial to achieving victory in November.
Both presidential candidates and President Joe Biden have toured affected areas in recent days.
The White House announced on Friday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has so far provided $45 million (£34 million) in funding to people affected by the hurricane.
In a statement, the National Guard added that it is deploying more than 6,700 Army and Air National Guard members from 16 states to support the response on the ground.
The president also sent 1,000 active-duty soldiers to support aid efforts.
Earlier this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that Fema would have a hard time providing assistance if another storm hits the United States in the coming months.
“We’re expecting another hurricane…Fema doesn’t have the funds to get through the season,” Mayorkas told reporters earlier this week.
The U.S. government has shipped more than 8.8 million meals, 7.4 million liters of water, 150 generators and more than 225,000 tarps to the region, Mayorkas said.
