Hospitals face shortage of drugs used for ventilator treatment: report

U.S. hospitals face a shortage of sedatives, anesthetics and other drugs used to manage the pain associated with ventilator use, which could make it harder for health care workers to place patients on the life-saving breathing machines.

Drugmakers have seen a more than 50 percent increase in demand for sedatives and painkillers in March as the number of coronavirus cases has surged, causing nearly 4 in 10 hospital orders to go unfilled as of last week, according to Stat News.

“What we are seeing now is some products that are in a shortage and others that are in a very tight market,” Dan Kistner, a group senior vice president for pharmacy solutions at Vizient, told Stat News. Vizient, which negotiates contracts with suppliers on behalf of some 3,000 hospitals, provided the data.

The potential for widespread shortages of drugs used in ventilator treatment is the kind of second-order shortfall that has been overshadowed by concerns that there may be too few devices themselves, or hospital personnel needed to operate them, amid an influx of patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

The U.S. has confirmed more than 203,000 cases and nearly 4,500 deaths from coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Ventilator use involves inserting a breathing tube down a patient’s throat, a process known as intubation, so that the machine can breathe for them while their lungs heal from the pulmonary harm caused by the disease.

But patients who are not properly drugged may try to remove the device.

“If you aren’t sedating someone enough, you always run the risk of someone self-excavating, which is ripping the tube out of themselves because they’re too awake,” an unnamed physician told ABC News.

An analysis of drug supplies across the country showed that several of the most commonly used drugs for ventilator treatment are running low, Dr. Erin Fox told ABC.

“We see a tsunami of patients coming our way and we don’t see a tsunami of drug availability coming our way,” she said. “It’s scary to think you might not have enough medicine.”