NOS.<\/a> She said essential surgical products are not always delivered. \u201cBut occasionally that does not work either.\u201d<\/p>\nPeter van der Weide, owner of a medical wholesale company, said hospitals are increasingly forced to rely on alternative suppliers when regular distributors cannot deliver, and he expects the situation to worsen.<\/p>\n
He said tighter European regulations are a major driver of the shortages, requiring manufacturers to recertify medical devices. \u201cBecause of that, manufacturers regularly remove products from their range because it simply no longer pays to bring them to market in Europe,\u201d he told NOS. He added that recertification is expensive and often requires product redesigns, making some items no longer commercially viable.<\/p>\n
Geopolitical disruptions are also contributing, said Bart van Bezooijen, a urologist at Meander Medical Center. \u201cIf oil, plastic, gasoline, diesel, and other substances are needed to make or transport products and they are not available, then that has an effect,\u201d he told NOS.<\/p>\n
Zijlmans said patients are not yet seeing major impacts, but some operations are being postponed. \u201cWe sometimes have to postpone a scheduled operation if something has not been delivered,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd sometimes a courier has to travel back and forth between hospitals. That is not only costly, but you also need to be able to work with those other products. Alternatives are often limited. You are not the only one dealing with these kinds of problems.\u201d Van Bezooijen warned that pressure on the system is increasing. \u201cThe care may no longer be able to meet expectations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Last month, a recall of a specific heart catheterization component created an immediate nationwide shortage. About 70 hospitals were forced to coordinate quickly to determine where stock remained and which facilities needed supplies most urgently. Planned heart procedures were suspended.<\/p>\n
He said shortages are becoming more frequent and now extend beyond medical devices to include medicines and staffing. When shortages occur or are anticipated, hospitals must report them to the Zorg Inkoop Netwerk Nederland (ZINN), a coordination body created during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the first inventory begins: does it affect one hospital or many hospitals?\u201d said Kevin Overgoor of ZINN. Dutch hospitals independently purchase medical supplies through agreements with individual suppliers, a system Overgoor said should change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you purchase autonomously, you do not look at the interest of the total Dutch healthcare system,\u201d he said. He said medicines are already centrally purchased and argued medical devices should follow the same model.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cabinet has this year made funds available for resilience and related medical products and production chains,\u201d a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said. The ministry said it is working on a blueprint for a crisis structure for large-scale shortages and is also reviewing national stockpiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dutch hospitals are confronting increasing shortages of medical devices, ranging from basic supplies, such as surgical gloves, to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-449003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}