Healthcare Facilities running out of medications + supplies

Nurses Safety

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We ran out of Fentanyl drips in the entire hospital a couple of days ago. With 24 patients in my unit alone on Fentanyl drips, mostly for vent sedation, I heard more vent alarms going off at once than I ever have because all of the patients were waking up simultaneously and feeling very uncomfortable. It was ridiculous. I now have to pose this question to the crowd...

What is the dumbest thing your unit has ever run out of? Did you cry, laugh hysterically, or both?

Specializes in ER, PACU, Med-Surg, Hospice, LTC.

Nasal cannulas and linens come to mind. UNREAL!

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We have run out of alcohol wipes due to a "national shortage". Really???

I remember that!

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Saline in a plastic surgery center using tumescent....company tried to creat a "new" mixture using water instead. Still don't know how there can be a national shortage of saline!

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Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.

500ml NS and LR bags, blood culture bottles (it's amazing how they can adapt and only need ONE anaerobic bottle vs two sets of both), compazine for like a year, radiopaque isotope for VQ scans, saline flushes.

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Seriously guys, this thread is much, much more scary than that "Nursing Ghost Stories" one on AN :eek: :eek: :eek:

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Specializes in ICU.

Come to think of it, we did run out of IV tubing once... that was fun when we got an admit who needed to be started on pressors and had boluses ordered and we were running to med/surg to steal IV tubing.

We had the deal with the Lasix and NS, too... and IV sodium phosphate was out for what felt like forever. I always had the patients who had high potassium but low phos so they couldn't get the K-phos instead, so I didn't get to ever fix their phos. It was frustrating in report. "Oh yeah, the phos is 2.1 and the protocol wanted me to order replacement, but I couldn't get that done this morning because we still don't have any sodium phos..." UGH.

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Specializes in Acute Care - Adult, Med Surg, Neuro.

Lotion

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.
Vancomycin in a dialysis unit....and it was region-wide not just our unit.

Oooh no!!

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Some of these, just wow! We have had to adjust to shortages of hydralazine, normal saline, LR, CBI 3L bags... But they were just shortages. We still had them available if necessary.

The real problems happen on the weekend when our central staffing office is closed. We have ran out of IV tubing, alcohol swabs, chux, lancets, wound care supplies, central line dressing change kits, biopatches, ect... Thankfully, when Monday rolls around we are stocked again. Over the weekend we end up having to beg/borrow from other units.

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Specializes in 3 years MS/Tele, 10 years total ICU, 5 travel.

Drug wise, hydralizine (on a neuro/cardiac ICU - that was fun) and protonix. Linens during the night. And frequently - in a crummy little rural place I will never, EVER return to - formula for the babies management kept putting on our ADULT med-surg unit.

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Specializes in LTC, Medical, Rehab, Psych.

Isolation gowns. No kidding, we were using the patient gowns instead. Fentanyl is much worse!

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Specializes in Intermediate Care.

There was no D50 available on our floors med rooms for a couple weeks.

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