As power outages continue across Greater Cleveland, residents with medical issues – especially those who rely on oxygen – were encountering mixed messages about how and where to get help.
Public officials told people to call supplier numbers on their oxygen canisters. Suppliers told them they were out of portable tanks or couldn’t deliver. Some hospitals and fire stations had small oxygen supplies but not enough to go around. Late Friday afternoon, a “mobile oxygen generator” from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) pulled up to MetroHealth Medical Center to refill oxygen tanks.
A spokesperson said the hospital was working on scheduling times for patients to come get refills. Cuyahoga County officials announced Friday evening that patients or their family members could get emergency oxygen tank refills this weekend in the Brook Park Recreation Center parking lot at 17400 Holland Rd. Tanks can be refilled on Saturday (Aug. 10) from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday (Aug. 11) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Signal Cleveland reached out to area hospitals as the power outage entered its fourth day after hearing from residents who rely on oxygen and electronic medical devices that they didn’t know where to turn for help.
News releases and emails from Cleveland officials and MetroHealth Medical Center directed people to call their oxygen tank suppliers. The city said those companies were “working with the health care systems to secure back-up supplies.”
The Cleveland Clinic said that anyone on home oxygen should contact their oxygen supplier for a refill and to “do your best” to get to a charging station for other medical devices.
Several officials and hospitals referred a reporter to the state health department. The state said to contact local health departments.
“Government processes do not work as quickly as any of us would like,” said Ken Gordon, a spokesperson for ODH.
Gordon said officials from the Cuyahoga County Office of Emergency Management requested a “mobile oxygen generator” from the state Thursday evening. The county told state officials that it was seeing an increase in hospital emergency visits from oxygen-dependent community members requiring refills. The state sent the equipment and one generator (to power the equipment) to Cleveland on Friday morning.
As outage persisted, oxygen reserves ran low
Tim Sommerfelt, secretary of the Cleveland Association of Rescue Employees (CARE), the union for emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics, said calls have increased in the past two days.
Along with their normal calls for medical emergencies, injuries and accidents, they’re getting calls from people experiencing medical issues because of the outage, he said.
Many of those calls have been from people on home oxygen, who use concentrator machines the require electricity, Somerfelt said. They are often fine for the first day or two but then they need to go to the hospital.
People on home oxygen are advised to keep spare oxygen tanks in case of power outages or other emergencies, Somerfelt said, but, “their reserves are running out.”
“Nobody’s gonna have enough oxygen or something to run 24/7 for a week or two,” Somerfelt said. “That’s just not realistic.”
“Oxygen is technically a drug,” regulated by the federal government, Sommerfelt said. So while Emergency Medical Services (EMS) can administer medication and oxygen to a patient, they can’t leave any behind to replenish the patient’s supply.
There are also other logistical issues. For example, if someone is able to get an oxygen tank, they may have to figure out how to get it up several flights of stairs when the elevator isn’t working.
“There are still multiple senior high rise buildings in the City of Cleveland [that] do not have electricity and have vulnerable residents who need it,” Sommerfelt said.
Those patients are sometimes transported to the hospital even if their issue isn’t life threatening, because paramedics want to make sure people are in a safe place.
Power still out? Here’s what health experts said about medications
- If your medications should be refrigerated, you can put the medication in in a cooler with a thermometer or in the refrigerator with ice. If you are unsure of the effective temperature range, contact a pharmacy.
- Read the instructions. In some instances, medication will be OK without refrigeration. Insulin pens can last at room temperature for up to 28 days.
‘Not a surprise’: Better planning needed for next outage
Sommerfelt lamented not having an answer for people struggling to find help. He said emergency rooms are very busy, and up until this morning Lakewood’s emergency room was turning away ambulances because the building was also experiencing a power outage.
Communities need to be better prepared for disasters, as they are going to keep happening, Sommerfelt said.
“They say that in disasters, the most vulnerable are very young, the very old and medically fragile. And as a society, we know this, and we could and should do better to help plan for that,” Sommerfelt said. “This is not a surprise.”
“If we don’t systemically look to be more resilient in the face of disasters, we’re going to keep having these same issues. They’re not going away,” he said. “There will be another large power outage. … So we need to start thinking about how that looks, not just for us, but for the more vulnerable in society.”
