Has anybody else heard about the "nationwide urinal shortage" (the type used in hospitals)? This was announced at work, we are to make sure that urinals are appropriate for patients.
We should also consider using a basin or emesis bag as alternatives, if urinals are not available.
So, I did a web search...no results. Checked with the FDA...nada. Looked at specific manufacturers, not a word.
So what do YOU know?
I think management just doesn't want us wasting product making Xmas urinal wreaths.
Lost the mold? I used to work in plastics, the only mold that ever got "lost" was on a ship, on the way to another country. Molds can crash, but this is strange.
Polyethylene (one kind of it). The matherial which is in short supply right now is polyethylene granules.
Reg. "losing mold", it is urban legend. I doubt that there is that holy "mold" anywhere at all, as the process must be authomated and mostly computer-directed long ago, even in China, where the wast majority of final product manufacturing plants are situated.
Yes, it is real. We usually use the sturdy plastic urinals. A week or two ago I spotted some crappy looking cardboard urinals. Ugh. Nobody happy about that situation.
The struggle is all to real....I work at a top Boston hospital. We round every hour and even then those paper/ egg crate urinals they got to hold us over fall apart quickly!!!
We've been short of urinals and had cutlery removed in the last year or so (this is in Canada). We were told it was because of the stupid lean process though. The service aid had a bunch of urinals secretly hoarded in a locked room no one ever uses on my old unit but I found them.
What is surprising to many people is that most products are made by a very, very small amount of companies.
You may have several companies selling products but they don't manufacture them. They buy from a wholesaler manufacturer who may be the only manufacturer or one of just a few. All those companies may purchase their raw materials such as their polypropylene pellets from a single source.
This is especially true in medical products since everything down to the raw materials has to be certified and manufactured in special ways.
Something happen to that polypropylene pellet manufacturer then there is a cascade effect. This is pure hypothetical but if the manufacturer had a shortage of sourced raw materials and had to decide between cutting back on urinals or syringes they may have chosen the more important item.
Random related question: Do your units have a policy on how frequently you change out the urinal/give the patient a new one? We change them out at 6 am daily, even if the patient has a foley and the urinal was only used once to empty the foley bag. I always thought that was ridiculous lol.
qaqueen
308 Posts
Lost the mold? I used to work in plastics, the only mold that ever got "lost" was on a ship, on the way to another country. Molds can crash, but this is strange.