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HPN Medicine Supply Crisis

Eye On Wales tells the story patients who rely on an intravenous liquid known as home parenteral nutrition or HPN to survive. What happened when the supply reduced this summer?

28 minutes

Last on

Sun 20 Oct 2019 18:32

More about the programme

Imagine what it's like to be told that you can't have any food or drink for a week or two or even longer.

That's what happened this summer to people who have intestinal failure and survive on a liquid feed that is fed straight in to their blood supply.

About 130 people in Wales are fed intravenously in this way, but still manage to live normal healthy lives at home.

But this summer, their deliveries failed to come. They started to panic, and the medics on the frontline had to deal with a situation they didn't see coming.

The supply crisis is slowly being sorted but won't be fully resolved before the end of 2019.

Eye On Wales meets both patients and medics, and asks what happened, and what are the lessons for the future.

Broadcasts

  • Wed 16 Oct 2019 18:30
  • Thu 17 Oct 2019 05:30
  • Sun 20 Oct 2019 18:32

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