Insufficient medical supplies

A genetically-engineered drug to treat multiple sclerosis (Betaseron) was so scarce in the USA that it was distributed to patients through a nationwide lottery. It is the first drug claimed to change the course of the disease, rather than treat its symptoms; only patients with the relapsing-remitting form of the disease, and able to walk for the past 10 years, were eligible for the lottery.

One of the worst drug shortages facing US hospitals was reported in 2001, and was not expected to be the last. Shortages of medications that hospitals use every day were apparently occurring with more frequency and they more often involved products with few good alternatives. Examples were the tetanus vaccine, intravenous Isuprel (to revive cardiac arrest victims); Wydase (to numb eyes for cataract and other surgeries), the painkiller fentanyl, and Narcan (used to reverse morphine overdoses). Shortages encouraged price increases, sometimes a doubling of the cost. At the same time hospitals are keeping less inventory than ever before, sometimes only enough for a few days. Reasons for the shortages were companies suddenly deciding not to make the drug or a crucial ingredient for a drug, temporary rises in demand, production halts through discovery of health-threatening violations in a factory and a decrease in replacement medicines due to drug company mergers. The US Federal Drug Authority (FDA) and Centres for Disease Control (CDC) were studying which critical drugs are most at risk for shortages. FDA officials were trying to ease the situation by finding overseas ingredient suppliers or encouraging small drug companies to make drugs a larger company has decided to cease production of. A system of Internet bulletins is being developed warning of impending shortages and listing any alternatives.

American hospitals have been living with serious drug shortages for more than a decade. Most days, nearly 300 essential drugs can be in short supply. It's not a matter of supply and demand -- the drugs are needed and the ingredients are easy to make; it's that pharmaceutical companies have stopped producing many life-saving generic drugs because they make too little profit. 
These are basic things. Glucose. Sugar. They're all very old, fundamental drugs that every hospital in the country needs and uses.

Drug shortages can kill. In 2011, when norepinephrine, an old, low profit drug used to treat septic shock, was in short supply, hundreds of people around the country died.
 

You would think to yourself, "How hard is it to manufacture some of these simple meds, like dextrose or sterile water?" But, some of these are low-margin drugs. And because of that smaller margin, you don't have a ton of manufacturers making the product. 

Unlike newer brand name drugs that cost as much as six figures per dose, vincristine, a low margin "generic" drug around since the 1960s, costs about $5 per dose. Months before the shortage, one of the two remaining vincristine manufacturers, Teva Pharmaceuticals, announced it would stop making vincristine for U.S. hospitals.
They indicated that it was a business decision. They could make more money on more profitable drugs-- than Vincristine.
Vincristine was one of 16 chemo drugs in short supply last year. Dr. Schwartz told us the shortages are forcing doctors to ration scarce drugs. 
But all the arrows and acronyms point to one thing: a broken system, which our investigation found is a root cause of drug shortages. Take the $5 cancer drug vincristine. The middlemen, the group purchasing organizations and drug distributors take their cut for administrative, marketing and other fees and hospital incentives. The drug manufacturers end up with just a small fraction of what the patient pays. Many have simply stopped making the least profitable drugs.
Group purchasing organizations control more than $250 billion in hospital purchases annually.  The biggest three account for about 90% of the business. They typically award the contract to the manufacturer with the lowest price drug. Add in all the complex fees and the group purchasing organizations grow wealthier, while losing manufacturers are squeezed out.
40% of generic drugs now have just one manufacturer.