MONROE, LA (KTVE/KARD) – Drug and drug shortages have been a problem in the United States for many years and have particularly increased in the wake of the pandemic. This shortage affects several groups of people, including those who need medication, as well as hospitals and pharmacies. John Bruchhaus, chief medical officer at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe, LA, spoke about exactly how the hospital has been affected in recent years.
“It’s been going on for almost five years now, but it’s worse post-pandemic. We first noticed it in 2017 when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and devastated the pharmaceutical industry.”
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John said St. Francis has been fortunate to be able to get needed medicines from larger hospitals they work with as well as wholesalers they are affiliated with. However, rural hospitals that lack these connections have lost much of the aid due to the dwindling supply of medicines.
“We have the purchasing power of five to six hospitals, so we’ve often been able to buy alternatives to the medicines we’re in short supply of, and our patients have benefited greatly from that. One thing that has affected this is that in the past we have loaned a lot of these medicines to some of the smaller rural hospitals when they were suffering severe shortages and unfortunately we weren’t able to do that as often as we used to in the Past because we needed the meds and everything we have on the shelf.”
Kay Chandler, owner and chief pharmacist of Kay’s Compounding Pharmacy in Monroe, LA, spoke more about the possible causes of these shortages.
“There are a number of reasons for drug shortages, there is increasing demand and low supply. That can have several reasons; If you have a manufacturing issue and the manufacturer cannot supply enough product, then it is a shortage issue.”
Both John and Kay said they believe the future of drug shortages is finding alternative supply chain routes through new wholesale relationships and solutions from insurance companies to get people the drugs they need.
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