ALBANY, N.Y. -- Hospitals around the world use bags of saline and dextrose to dilute and administer medicines to patients. Hospitals can go through more than 1,000 of the bags a day.
Albany Medical Center Pharmacy Director Anthony Despirito says he meets with his team daily to come up with a plan on how to deal with that day. They have been reaching out to any supplier they can to try and fill the gaps of what is coming out of Puerto Rico.
Currently, officials say there has been no impact on patient care. Staff members have been taking large bags which are available and putting them into smaller bags. This is far from ideal, but it is what has been deemed necessary.
"We've been able to stockpile and so far we've been able to manage pretty well," Despirito said.
Staff members say the plant in Puerto Rico that makes the bags is slowly coming online, but the roads in and out of the factories are still damaged, so this may be a problem that continues. The Department of Health sent Spectrum News a brief statement, saying that hospitals around the state are coping with the problem.