MOUNT VERNON — Hurricane Helene, which ravaged the Southeast in late September, is impacting Skagit County in the form of a national IV fluid shortage.
Baxter International Inc.’s North Cove, North Carolina, factory that produces about 60% of the country’s IV solutions, has been shut down because of damage from the hurricane, according to the Associated Press.
Skagit Regional Health has begun to take measures to conserve IV fluids by rescheduling some nonemergent surgeries and procedures.
“This is a temporary measure and precautionary measure. (Skagit Regional Health) is exhausting all efforts to identify additional sources for IV fluids,” the health care provider said in a Facebook post Wednesday.
Island Health in Anacortes has activated an incident command in response to the shortage, spokesperson Laura Moroney said in an email.
The incident command is conducting daily inventories of the supply on hand, as well as discussing any new information pertaining to the shortage.
“We are currently operating on a contingency capacity, able to provide care to a standard that is equivalent to usual patient care practices,” Moroney said. “Fortunately to date, we have not had to make any adjustments to our surgeries or procedures.”
To tackle the supply chain crunch caused by the closure of the Baxter International plant, the federal government has approved importing IV fluids from Baxter plants in other countries.
According to the Associated Press, Baxter currently has no timeline for returning production to pre-Helene levels.
