Hospitals grapple with opioid shortage
Injected painkillers, in limited supply, often have to be rationed
TRENTON, N.J. — There is another opioid crisis happening in the U.S., and it has nothing to do with the overdose epidemic: Hospitals are frequently running out of widely used injected painkillers.
Manufacturing shortages are forcing many doctors and pharmacists to sometimes ration injected opioids, reserving them for the patients suffering most. Other patients get slower-acting or less effective pain pills, alternatives with more side effects or even sedation.
Medical groups are urging regulators to help, saying some people having surgery, fighting cancer or suffering with severe burns are getting inadequate pain control. They also say shortages frequently cause medication switches that could lead to deadly mistakes.
Earlier this month, the American Medical Association declared drug shortages a public health crisis, saying it will urge federal agencies to examine the problem as a national security threat and perhaps designate medicine factories as critical infrastructure.
Injected opioid shortages have happened before, in 2001 and 2010, but they weren’t as acute and long-lived, experts say. This one started almost a year ago and is expected to last into next year.
“It’s definitely the most severe I’ve seen in tracking drug shortages for 17 years,” says Erin Fox, a University of Utah Hospitals pharmacist. She tracks national medicine shortages and recalls two patients dying due to medication errors during the 2010 shortage.
The shortages started hitting hospitals last summer.