Canadian hospitals running out of crutches due to supply chain issues

Every day across Canada, people end up in the emergency department at the hospital with sprains and fractures that can damage their ability to walk.

Some get casts or boots around their injured foot or ankle, but most also get a pair of crutches to help them get around while their injury heals.

But supply chain issues and a shortage of aluminum means that in Canada, which imports all of its aluminum crutches from overseas, the supply is running low.

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Many hospitals are on their last few crutches, with no backups on the way. Oakville Trafalgar Memorial ER has around three dozen crutches left on the hanging racks inside the emergency unit.

“After that, there's none,” Jeffrey Natividad, a registered practical nurse in Oakville, told CTV News. “They usually restock it every week. But this time, it's all that we have.”

And about half of patients that would normally be sent home with crutches aren’t receiving them right now. One reason is that there aren’t the right sizes for some younger patients.

Without crutches, healing leg, foot or ankle injuries can be slower.

“The crutches pretty much helped relieve the pressure off for [an] injured foot,” Natividad said. “[If] there's less pressure, then the healing is faster.”

Hospitals are hurting across North America due to the shortage. Just days ago, a hospital team in Utah put out an alert, asking for donations of gently used crutches, canes, walkers and wheelchairs.

“We are in desperate need of […] crutches, canes,” said Dr. Joey Kamerath, senior medical director of rehabilitation services at Intermountain Healthcare. “Our supply chain has run completely dry.”

There’s also reports of severe shortages in Georgia, Colorado and West Virginia.

And some stores in Canada that sell medical assistive devices are getting calls daily from desperate hospitals nationwide.

Vital Mobility, a shop based in Vaughan, Ont., told CTV News that they’ve been receiving several emails a week.

“Unfortunately there's not product available, and we don't know for how long this is going to happen,” Bruno Rzeznikiewiz of Vital Mobility said. “I think it's a very severe situation.”

He said that the phone rings every couple of days as well with hospitals checking if they have anything.

“You can imagine that every fracture clinic in the hospital, how many crutches a day they will need,” he said, adding that if they did have stock, they would’ve been able to sell 3,000 to 4,000 units over the last couple of weeks based on the demand from hospitals.

“All across Canada, from B.C., Montreal, Quebec, Ontario, north, south, every single hospital has this issue right now,” Rzeznikiewiz said.

And peak crutch season is only weeks away.

“Once the winter hits, you start getting slips, trips and falls on the ice,” Scott Etherington, logistics manager at Halton Health, told CTV News.

Almost no crutches used in Canada are made domestically.

Most are manufactured in China, and right now there is a shortage of aluminum and magnesium used to make them.

The cost of shipping during the pandemic has also tripled, which means the price will likely jump from $30 for a pair of crutches to close to $100.

Rzeznikiewiz explained that some manufacturers are choosing to hold onto products because there’s no point in shipping them if the retail price would be so high that no one could buy them.

“I don't think either they know what's going on and how long it's going to take,” he said.

There’s no word on when supplies could resume.

“Now we're hearing middle of November, could push into December, January, February,” said Etherington.

To combat the issue, Halton Healthcare has started a donation drive in the hopes of getting more crutches, in a campaign called ‘We’re in a clutch, donate a crutch!’

Etherington said the idea behind it is that many families have an old pair of crutches they’ve forgotten about that is probably still useable.

“Everybody must have a pair of crutches in their basement, in their closets, that they've used,” he said. “I know I had a pair. The first thing I brought into the hospital. So we've asked the community, ‘Hey, if you have them, you don't need them. Could you please donate them?’”

The campaign states that around 300 crutches are used monthly for patients in the three hospitals covered by Halton Healthcare.

So far, around 40 pairs of crutches have been donated, Etherington said.

“We're trying to get it to a point where we're actually able to get some supply and supplement with the donations so that we're not at a point where we have nothing on the shelves,” he said.

He said that when his wife had double knee surgery, she relied on her crutches.

“If she didn't have them when she had the surgery, I don't know what we would have done,” he said.

“So we're just hoping that everybody can take a look. And if they do have them, please drop them off. And we'll go through the process of checking them, cleaning them and making sure they get back on the shelf for a patient.”

Guelph General Hospital also had to ask for donations a couple weeks ago, when they were running “quite low” on crutches.

“To date we’ve only received a handful of crutches,” said Perry Hagerman, senior communications specialist at the hospital, told CTV News in an email.

The hospital’s regular supplier told them they were backordered for at least a month, explaining that the port of origin in China experienced a surge in COVID-19 infections, which decreased capacity by 70 per cent for several weeks.

Guelph General had to ask for donations while looking for alternate suppliers, but said they’ve managed to secure enough crutches until their regular supplier comes through.

Although crutches are the main focus right now, vendors are warning that there may be a shortage in walkers and canes and other metal-made devices soon — another chapter in the story of how the pandemic has disrupted the world.

Etherington pointed out that if we had the manufacturing ability to create these essential medical assistance products here, it would prevent these situations.

“I think we should have that,” he said.