Medical staff and administrators at Wabash General Hospital are doing their best to make sure a nationwide shortage of IV fluids doesn’t affect surgeries and procedures here. At Monday’s WGH Board of Directors meeting, Chief of Staff Dr. Donald Bisby said the medical staff had met to discuss the saline shortage caused by a factory in North Carolina that was damaged last month by Hurricane Helene. Some hospitals are postponing surgeries and other procedures as a result of the shortage. But, WGH Executive VP of clinical services Kim Pearson said the local hospital is in good shape…for now at least as they’ve been able to stockpile saline. Bisby said the medical staff agreed that they still have a couple of weeks until any alternative plans would be put into place. The Biden administration has invoked the wartime powers of the Defense Production Act to speed rebuilding of the major American factory of intravenous fluids that was wrecked last month. Some 60% of the nation's IV supplies had relied on production from the plant, run by medical supplier Baxter, before it was damaged by the storm.