WASHINGTON (TNND) — Hospitals are running low on IVs after Hurricane Helene damaged one of the country's largest production facilities.

Baxter International, which supplies roughly 60% of the nation's IV fluids, had to close after floodwaters damaged its North Carolina site.

Joshua Denson, an intensive care physician at East Jefferson General Hospital with Tulane University said he's experiencing this IV fluid shortage firsthand.

"It's being felt definitely throughout the hospital and it definitely is on the back of everybody's minds," Denson said.

Denson said his department has to use IV fluids but in other departments, it's being communicated to try and ration resources.

"When there's a 50/50 call, if you need to use some IV fluids to maybe not use those in certain circumstances," Denson said.

Arjun Venkatesh, a professor of emergency medicine at the Yale School of Medicine said this shortage is more widespread than many think. It's affecting saline and fluids for dialysis and nutrition.

"Many people get nutrition via an IV if they have cancer of the mouth or for some reason need to be fed via IV because they can't swallow food," Venkatesh said.

Like most hospitals and emergency departments across the country, Venkatesh said they're taking proactive steps to try and conserve as much IV fluid as possible.

Encouraging people to drink fluids orally. Things like that are already starting to work. Is it going to be enough to weather the whole storm? I think that remains to be seen," said Venkatesh.

A question Denson also wants answered, but for the time being, outside of the ICU, they're doing everything they can to get by.

"We don't have much luxury to withhold certain things and wait and see but other places in the hospital we do and we're doing that," said Denson.

After a brief pause, Baxter resumed the distribution of supplies but with a significant restriction on the amount that could be ordered. Federal health officials have also recently approved importing certain IV fluids from overseas.