Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston is running out of inline suction catheters used to treat patients on ventilators, and the shortage is putting providers at risk, STAT reported.
Carolyn La Vita, assistant director of respiratory care at Massachusetts General, told STAT that the hospital is running out of the catheters, which are used to drain mucus that gathers in lungs of patients hooked up to ventilators.
The inline suction catheters can be attached to ventilators and reused multiple times on a single patient.
The alternative to the inline suction catheter is a single-use suction catheter, which requires providers to open the ventilator circuit and insert it every time a patients' lungs need to be suctioned, according to STAT.
Opening the ventilator circuit can cause droplets of patients' saliva to expel from the ventilator, putting providers at more risk of contracting COVID-19.
They are also a less-sustainable option, as La Vita told STAT she goes through about eight to 10 single-use catheters per patient every 24 hours.
Since Massachusetts General is running out of inline suction catheters, Ed Raeke, the hospital’s director for materials management, told STAT he tried to order more but was told they were on backorder until mid-May.
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