OHIO — In recent years, there has been an increase in medical drug shortages. The first quarter of 2023 has shown to be no different.

Patricia Roberts, the director of pharmacy for oncology services at University Hospitals, said that she hopes this changes soon.

“I’d love to be a pharmacist in a world where we don’t have drug shortages and our supply meets our demands and our needs for patients, but in reality, that’s never been the world that I’ve lived in since I’ve been in practice,” she said. 

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists has been monitoring the drug shortage numbers and said in the first quarter of 2023, there are 301 active drug shortages. Roberts said the reasoning for why this happens is not always reported.

“About 55% of the time as an unknown reason, so we are not able to completely speculate what that reason may be,” she said.

Although, she explained her professional opinion as to why she thinks there are shortages.

“In some instances, access to the active ingredient for the drug may be in short supply, so there’s a raw material issue. There may be manufacturing delays, which could impact these medications or recalled products,” she said.

She expressed that it would be her worst nightmare to have a patient show up and not have drugs available for them, which has yet to happen at University Hospitals, but has happened in other places. Roberts explained what happens when a drug becomes unavailable.

“There may be regimens that are equally efficacious or less efficacious, or patients will have to have treatment postponed until the supply comes back,” she said.

If worse came to worst, the doctors and pharmacists would have to decide who would get treatment and who would not. Roberts explained she feels confident that University Hospitals will stay on top of the shortage and has hopes for this issue to end soon.