FORT SMITH, Ark. — The Fort Smith Regional Dialysis Center said they could soon run out of necessary supplies needed for their life saving treatments for over 400 patients.
Barbara Thompson, the Director of Clinical Operations for the center, said supply chain issues with one of their suppliers has reduced their allocation of peritoneal dialysis fluid to almost half of what they normally need.
The fluid helps remove excess waste and fluid from the blood for dialysis patients.
“We are urgently needing saline, urgently needing saline to be able to sustain life for these patients,” Thompson said. "Because there is a shortage of that saline, they're having to do therapy every other day instead of the seven days they're doing five days a week.”
The shortage is a direct result of Hurricane Helene.
Baxter, the company who supplies the Fort Smith Regional Dialysis Center, and their two other locations in the River Valley with the solution, said its North Cove manufacturing site in North Carolina was hit hard from the storm.
According to a press release, Baxter added that the site is back up and running and is ramping up efforts at other plants to help meet further demands throughout the United States.
“We have called multiple suppliers, and we've checked with multiple pharmacies. No one is able to get saline at this time,” Thompson said.
Thompson added that as of now, the sites have just over two weeks of available supplies left. In the meantime, she said they are reducing the number of treatments per week, to allow for longer sustainability.
She said the sites are doing what they can to make sure patients are aware of the matter and know what to do to best protect themselves.
"We educate and educate and educate our patients even before the crisis,” Thompson said. “They definitely have to watch their fluids. They just have to be super, super careful about what their intake is more so than what they normally do. We try to make sure that patients get taken care of, so that they don't have to go to the hospital because they're under allocation, just like we are.”
In Northwest Arkansas, Rob Bomstad, CEO of Dialysis Centers of Northwest Arkansas, said they too provide home dialysis treatments, including peritoneal dialysis.
He said while they do expect some reduction in allocation from Baxter regarding peritoneal dialysis, the company also uses an additional manufacturer for peritoneal dialysis products and solutions.
Thompson added that it is important for patients to continue attending their treatments at this time and added the centers will continue to look for solutions to acquire more peritoneal dialysis fluid.
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