Baxter International's facility in North Carolina, which is one of the U.S.'s leading producers of IV fluids, was severely flooded, causing a halt in their production.
Purvi Parikh M.D. with the Arizona Medical Association said hospitals are being encouraged to conserve and ration their resources.
"The plant aims to resume operations this week but even then, we don't know if it will be able to kind of meet the high demand of not so many hospitals and other facilities not having fluids for weeks," Parikh said.
Parikh emphasized that IV fluids are crucial in many emergency and life-threatening situations, such as trauma cases, severe allergic reactions, resuscitation, and maintaining vital organ function.
"There really isn't any reserves or backup manufacturers for a situation like this," Parikh said. "That's why we have to rely on other countries to send us fluids, such as the UK or China... that's a big concern."
Banner Health, one of Arizona's largest health systems, said as of October 14th they started delaying some elective surgeries across all their locations to ensure they have enough supplies to help those in emergency situations.
"While Banner has received some partial shipments and implemented stringent conservation measures, our current supply is insufficient to safely maintain our usual volume of surgeries," Banner said in a statement.
HonorHealth said they are continuing to monitor supply chain issues but noted that patient care has not been impacted at this time.
Mayo Clinic said they are reviewing their inventory and noted procedures, and said surgeries still plan to run as scheduled.
Parikh said she thinks it could take some time before supply gets back to normal.
"They were just hit by a hurricane, so even once they're up and running, it'll probably take some time to get up to their full production," Parikh said.
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