Less than 50% of Article:

“Trying to run the ventilators without these drugs will be like trying to operate a fleet of cars without gasoline,”

<snip>

“You have a tube basically down your throat to help you breathe,” explained Chris Fortier, the chief pharmacy officer at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We need medications to sedate you and treat your pain, and sometimes to even give you some paralysis so that you’re not pulling on that ventilator and damaging your lungs.”

Adequate supplies of the drugs are also being stretched because COVID-19 patients typically stay on ventilators from 10 to 14 days, which is longer than typical patients.

<Snip>

If supplies run out, specialists said, doctors have other options — drugs that may not be their first choice, or drugs unavailable in doses they prefer. Using them could increase the risk of medication error or take more time to administer at a time when clinicians are racing to treat as many patients as possible.

<Snip>

“Fentanyl comes in different sizes,” Kistner said, describing a situation where clinicians might have to use several smaller doses for a single patient if larger doses are not at hand. “That would be a lot of work and very inefficient.”

The specific drugs running low include the opioid painkillers fentanyl, morphine, and hydromorphone; the sedatives midazolam and propofol; and the paralytics pancuronium, rocuronium, and succinylcholine, according to the letter the ASHP sent to Pence.

Already, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has announced it is raising its 2020 ceiling for opioid production by 15% and is approving drugmaker requests for higher limits, often within a day.

Rest of article here:
[link to www.breitbart.com (secure)]