By james art 
Sunday, November 3, 2024 | 2 in the morning
When Hurricane Helen hit North Carolina last month, killing more than 100 people and causing $53 billion in damage in the state, it also knocked out a facility at the center of the United States’ IV bag manufacturing.
Medical maker Baxter has spent the past month trying to get the plant — which makes more than half of the IV bags used in U.S. hospitals — up and running. Baxter said last week that it had restarted the production line responsible for the plant’s highest output of IV solutions, but that supplies of the product would not resume until the end of this month at the earliest.
After Helen dissipated, 85 percent of the nation’s hospitals reported having less than 20 days of IV fluids on hand, according to media reports.
The shortage of IV is also felt here.
Dignity Health, which operates seven hospitals in the Valley, told the Sun that while supplies have improved with efforts to protect the system, IV fluid “remains limited” and will be until the North Carolina plant is fully operational.
Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center wrote in a statement to the Sun that they closely monitored the use of intravenous fluids at the hospital and that “necessary patient care was not affected.”
While IV bags are usually a rare sight outside of hospitals and ambulances, they have also become a luxury item in Las Vegas as a hangover cure for about a decade. There are now drip bars, salons and health clinics on the Strip and throughout Clark County.
Amid continued shortages, Las Vegas IV’s domestic industry continued to operate.
Chrissa Chen-Davis is the managing partner of Hangover Heaven, a medical clinic that provides intravenous injections to combat the effects of binge drinking. The company, which also serves hotel guests in their rooms, has cut IV supplies in half, she said.
“Obviously, hospitals have the first right to fluids, so we get a ration of IV fluids as they become available,” Chen-Davis said. “There’s no timeline that we’ve been given when this shortage might end.”
Most of Hangover Heaven’s nurses also work in emergency rooms. At their other job, Chen-Davis said they were told not to give IVs unless the doctor ordered it.
Chen-Davis said the company has reduced its services to only “high-end treatments” while the shortage continues.
VegasIV, which also provides IVs to hotel guests, lists nine of its 12 IV packages as “out of stock.”
Meg Brooker, owner and medical director at Push IV wellness, said her company’s distribution has been reduced by 80 percent due to the storm. However, while there are still some restrictions, Brooker said she has already been able to order almost everything.
Andrew Pasternak, the former president of the Nevada State Medical Association, published an op-ed in the health publication STAT arguing that IV hydration units should stop working until the shortage ends.
“Medical professionals expending their resources to relieve people from a time-limited self-imposed condition could be better used elsewhere,” he wrote. “During this IV emergency, it’s frankly a waste to help someone get better from a hangover, while critically ill patients may experience a delay in care.”
Chen-Davis said if she sees that local hospitals don’t have life-saving supplies, she will volunteer.
“If (IV drip bars) have inventory or if they have inventory that they’ve purchased for their business operation, they shouldn’t be asked to impede their operations,” she said. “If you’re talking about future supplies, those are first and foremost already a priority for the hospital.”
Pasternak told the Sun that there is no scientific evidence behind the health benefits of IVs other than their hydration, adding that drinking fluids is easier and lacks the rare complications of IVs.
Brooker says her company always asks people if they’ve tried to hydrate using “traditional methods,” like drinking electrolyte drinks, before connecting them to an IV. After the hurricane, she said she was “a little more careful” during the process.
Baxter does not yet have a timetable for when the North Carolina facility will be fully operational.
Chen-Davis said it was “mind-blowing” to learn that the country’s supply of IV bags was so dependent on one facility.
“We can’t be so dependent on one system,” she said. “Let us have several production sites (intravenous fluid bags) so that our hospitals are always prepared for any event that should happen in our country.”
[email protected] / 702-990-8923 / @Kyle_Chouinard