Fresenius Medical Care (FME), the world’s leading provider of products and services for individuals with renal diseases, is supporting customers, patients, staff, and clinics to ensure there is no disruption in current or potential Fresenius Kidney Care Home patients receiving their peritoneal dialysis care. FME has a plan in place to monitor and conserve supplies, adjust prescriptions, and use other suppliers to help mitigate potential shortages from Hurricane Helene’s impact on Baxter International’s manufacturing site in western North Carolina. We remain in close contact with other industry leaders and regulatory authorities to evaluate the situation and continuously refine our plans to support our peers.
While FME benefits from its vertically integrated business model providing dialysis services and manufacturing products, there is an overall industry-wide supply shortage of peritoneal dialysis products (PD) and IV fluids. The company responded immediately and is working to ramp up its production capacity of PD and IV solutions to create additional supply. In the short term this is being done by maximizing the use of existing production capacity at our international sites. At the request of the Department of Health & Human Services, FME is further exploring all opportunities to ensure patients’ needs for both IV fluids and PD products are met during this period of critical need.
With Hurricane Milton impacting Florida, FME’s priority is to ensure the safety of patients and employees. The company has a disaster response team that coordinates its response and prepares in advance for natural disasters. In addition to closing more than 100 dialysis centers on Wednesday and Thursday, FME mobilized its command center a week in advance to begin coordinating with local teams, doctors, hospitals, and authorities. FME works closely with patients to find alternative locations and timeslots where they can receive life-sustaining dialysis treatments before and immediately after the storm, including opening many centers on Sunday.
As part of the company’s natural disaster recovery process and plans, FME teams are prepared with 14,000 gallons of fuel, hundreds of personal generators for employees, generators for centers not already equipped with them, water tankers and other equipment and supplies on standby to ensure patients in affected areas continue receiving necessary dialysis treatments, even during power outages or water disruptions.
In addition, FME has teams on standby to go to the affected areas immediately after the storm to help our patients, staff, and facilities with recovery.
The company is closely monitoring Hurricane Milton, and FME’s care teams across the region will remain in contact with both in-center and home-based patients before, during, and after the storm to assess needs and provide emergency treatment guidance.
FME urges its patients to stay connected with their local clinic and, if needed, to contact Fresenius Medical Care’s 24-hour Patient Emergency Line at (800) 626-1297 for assistance or updates. This line remains available even if local communication services are down.
In case of medical emergencies, patients should call 911.
Source & Image Credit: Fresenius Medical Care
