Local hospital officials worry the county’s medical center could run out of a drug that’s needed for patients who are on ventilators.
Propofol is a short-acting drug used to sedate patients when they need to be put on a ventilator. With the rapid spread of COVID-19, a potentially deadly respiratory illness that has infected more than 2,000 Hoosiers in two weeks, doctors expect they’ll need to use several ventilators as patients’ lungs begin to fail.
The ventilator’s job is to take over the breathing process by pushing air into the lungs. To use a ventilator, patients need to be unconscious while doctors insert a tube down their throat, and they need to stay comfortably sedated as long as the ventilator is doing the work of their lungs.
It’s no secret hospitals have a limited amount of ventilators, but a bigger concern is the potential to run out of propofol, the most reliable way to sedate patients on a ventilator, said Dr. David Dunkle, president and CEO of Johnson Memorial Health.
Johnson Memorial Hospital has 13 ventilators. One COVID-19 patient has been using one since Sunday, and the hospital is running low on propofol, Dunkle said.
“That’s a little scary to think that it might not be the number of ventilators you have, but the number of drugs you have,” he said.
There are other drugs that can be used for sedation if hospitals do run out, but propofol is the best option for those on a ventilator, Dunkle said.
Because propofol is short-acting, it can be quickly adjusted to fit a patient’s needs. For example, patients on a ventilator sedated by the drug can be woken up in about 10 minutes, making it easier for doctors to test out letting patients breathe on their own, said Larry Harrison, Johnson Memorial’s director of pharmacy services. The drug also doesn’t affect heart rhythms, while similar drugs might, he said.
Community Hospital South is not faced with a similarly short supply of propofol at the moment, spokesperson Kris Kirschner said. If needed, the hospital has plans in place to address any drug shortages, which is not that uncommon, she said.
