How is hurricane damage across the U.S. affecting hospitals in Utah?

ST. GEORGE, Utah – Anyone scheduled to have elective surgery in the coming weeks or days should be prepared for a delay due to a tornado wreaking havoc on the other side of the country.

Hurricane Helen, devastated the southeastern United Statesdamaged a North Carolina plant that produces 60% of IV fluids and supplies Utah hospitals, This also creates a ripple effect across the country.

As director of Emergency Preparedness for the Utah Hospital Association, Jordan Sorenson works for the organization that represents all Utah hospitals. It has dealt with a similar crisis before during the pandemic, but hospitals are now taking some of the same precautions they were forced to take during COVID.

“What the hospitals did was they implemented pretty stringent prevention strategies,” he said. “They reduce the use of IV fluids wherever and whenever they can. If the patient can drink instead of getting an IV, they do this.”

Baxter International in North Carolina returned to operations, but the damage was done to medical providers.

“This leads to the postponement of elective surgeries, especially IV-intensive surgeries,” Sorenson said. “Luckily, medically urgent surgeries, trauma, chemotherapy and things like that were not affected.”

Unlike setups in other states, Sorenson said Utah hospitals get along well with each other and are willing to share.

“Even though we’re competitors, we realize we’re all in the same boat. And if a hospital collapses and runs out of IV fluids, that will have a knock-on effect for other facilities,” he said.

However, non-hospital-affiliated medical providers and clinics, such as dialysis centers, are things that may need a lifeboat. There are also small-staffed rural hospitals where the emergency physician is also the pediatrician and chief of surgery.

“We need to take care of these people because they are the epitome of doing more with less,” Sorenson added.

Unlike the heart of the epidemic, which seems to have no end in sight, there is an end point to the current situation, where providers and hospitals believe things will be back to normal by Christmas.