August 18, 2021 – Hospitals nationwide are facing another shortage of supplies as they grapple with a surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations brought on by the delta variant, reports FOX Business.
This time it’s anything from trash cans to machines that monitor a patient’s vital signs and even the poles that hold IV lines, according to Cindy Juhas, chief strategy officer of CME Corp. CME is one of America’s largest equipment-focused national medical distributors in the U.S., offering more than 2 million products from more than 2,000 manufacturers.
“Now, what we are seeing are more and more hospitals and medical centers putting up new, temporary facilities due to the delta surge,” she said. “The need for medical equipment to operate the facilities is fueling delays and shortages in the supply chain.”
Juhas said the company is getting most of its orders from “places that are being hit the hardest by the delta variant,” such as Florida, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama.
Juhas says it has been an ongoing struggle to fill the orders.
The medical supply chain transportation issues, lack of raw materials and labor shortages are “creating the perfect storm” as the variant threatens the nation’s recovery, she said.
Even non-medical products like trash cans, bedside tables, and commode chairs are hard to come by.
Juhas said CME has 10 sources for commode chairs but “nobody has them in stock.”
The largest manufacturer CME works with is taking an average of 15 weeks to fill orders, according to Juhas, and some of its manufacturers aren’t even picking up their calls.
Juhas says that most manufacturers project that the problems will continue “through the end of this year and well into 2022.”