Posted on 01/29/2014 2:38:39 AM PST by Innovative
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it is working with the three manufacturers of intravenous saline solutions commonly used to hydrate hospital patients to address a shortage caused by a spike in demand.
To cope with the shortage, healthcare providers are using substitute products such as oral hydration fluids or smaller IV saline bags with slower drip rates when appropriate, said Bona Benjamin, director of medication use quality improvement for the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.
"We have heard from our members all over the country that the shortage is serious," Benjamin said. "People are able to cobble together enough of a supply to get by day to day."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
More people flock to hospitals for minor things, because "it's free" with all the subsidies, and since doctors and drug manufacturers can't get decent profits they will limit the supplies or go out of business totally, as there will be no incentive to provide medical care. It is going towards socialized medicine, where the government will be paying doctors fixed salaries, providing the medications, buying them at fixed prices and companies will go out of business because they can't sustain themselves, so now everything is "free" just not available.
Unless there is an outbreak somewhere that we’re not hearing about why the need for all the hydration?
This is just one item being reported. I know there are shortages of Tamiflu (for influenza) in some areas. I agree, it will only get worse.
I think I recall the same shortage of Tamiflu a couple of years ago ....
Only the federal government could cause a shortage of WATER and SALT.
It’ll reach a point where you turn to your local marijuana connection in the neighborhood...and task them to provide legit medical services or legit drugs. Your dealers...Juicy and McPot look at you in amazement. Really? You need services like this? Well...sure.
So Juicy will talk to Juan and Yung-Jim, and a week later....there’s a new trailer over in the seedy part of town in “Avon Trailer Park”. Quietly, some Chinese doctor has been sneaked into the US, and for $30....he examines you. He write a one-line prescription, which you hand to McPot, and gets a delivery from Panama once a week, and you pay him $50 for legit drugs that normally cost you $150.
Eventually, some dimwit from Princeton University writes up a 700-page book on the economics of new America....where he quotes Juicy and McPot on various economic theories that they’ve put into place, and why they are so successful. The dimwit wins a Nobel Prize, and some President wants to implement the legalized Juicy/McPot system to save America from the evil Obama Healthcare Law.
‘It’ll reach a point where you turn to your local marijuana connection in the neighborhood...and task them to provide legit medical services or legit drugs. Your dealers...Juicy and McPot look at you in amazement. Really? You need services like this? Well...sure.”
I wish I could say you are just being sarcastic, but unfortunately you may well be an accurate predictor of things to come.
How can there be a spike in the need for saline...?
No national emergency, no national disaster....
Must be those greedy manufacturers / S
“How can there be a spike in the need for saline...?
No national emergency, no national disaster....”
Just think if there were... Just goes to show you how fragile our medical system is and Obamacare will kill it off completely, killing any incentive to provide medical care and medication.
Funny, but so much truth in what you say. Like what happened during Prohibition.
It’s got electrolytes.
I work in healthcare, and the shortage of barium we went through was a canary in a coal mine in my view. Due to the overwhelming cost of legislative and regulatory overview, every barium plant in this country was closed because they became unprofitable.
So the only one left open in North America was in Mexico, and guess what happened there? They had to close that one due to unsanitary conditions. I don’t recall if it was permanent, but...it is just one thing.
With the climate making it unlikely someone will be able to make a profit, we see what happens. And we will see more of this.
Yesterday, Barium.
Today, Saline.
Tomorrow, Chest XRays and Doctor’s Appointments.
Expansion of Medicaid = more ppl going to hospitals.
0bamacare
and so it begins.
remember folks, when visiting family members, bring a vase of flowers ... with lots of water
I have been reading about pharmaceutical shortages for years now. Although most of the articles I have read state that the FDA is working with manufacturers to address the shortage, it seems that the problem is with getting the raw materials to feed into the manufacturing chain.
It seems the problem is just getting worse.
We can’t just blame Obamacare for this. A lot more comprehensive Obamaconomics is involved here.
I just paid $106 for a liter of saline solution at Mayo. For a cupful of common salts and water.
Here we go boys and girls, Uncle Sugar is in charge of your health and the insurance for it, ain’t it great!
At least at the Mayo they have the expertise to correct the situation for their patients if things get very bad. My brother’s sister was a nurse at Methodist Hospital for 50 years and how she describes what nursing was like when she first started is amazing. Hospitals used to make their own saline solutions. It is possible, but it just takes an innovative mindset, which is still very present at the Mayo. (I say that as a recent patient there.)
The barium shortage is another situation all together. I had to have a shallow test a couple months ago and was told that the attendants were being very, very careful to use the least amount as necessary due to the shortage. However, as a patient, I thought that probably was a good thing to only have to be exposed to the least amount.
Oh, come on. Are we supposed to believe that there’s a shortage of salt water? Gimme a break ...
Obamacare: Tom Coburn loses cancer doctor
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/obamacare-tom-coburn-cancer-doctor-102724.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.