The NHS is struggling with a lack of epidural kits, which are essential for providing mothers-to-be with pain relief during childbirth, as well as the medication that is supplied as a substitute.
Currently, some hospitals are unable to grant expectant patients their customary freedom to select the painkiller or epidural kit they like to use to ease labor pains.
According to anesthetists who spoke to the Guardian, the simultaneous lack of both types of pain relief has prompted “difficult discussions” with women who had been assured that they would have that option during their antenatal care but were disappointed to hear that it was not available.
Epidural kit shortages are so severe that NHS Supply Chain (NHSSC), the organization that oversees the delivery of medical supplies to hospitals in England and Wales, has limited deliveries to just one week’s worth of stock.
Childbirth organizations expressed their alarm and cautioned that some women in labor were already enduring lengthy waits before they received pain treatment as a result of the disruption to supplies.
“Offering a choice of options during birth is an integral element of good maternity care, and this includes pain relief. It is concerning that the shortage of epidural kits and Remifentanil could be denying many that right”, said Jo Corfield, the NCT’s head of communications and campaigns.
“We don’t yet fully understand the impact this shortage is having but we have heard of long waiting times to receive the pain relief and epidurals.”
Francesca Treadaway, the director of engagement at Birthrights, said: “Limited access to pain relief without good reason could be seen as a breach of the Human Rights Act.
“Article 3 prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment. For example, if midwives or doctors fail to provide care which is needed to avoid preventable suffering, such as pain relief, this could be inhuman or degrading treatment.”
An epidural is a treatment in which an anesthetist inserts a plastic tube into a laboring woman’s back to provide nerve-blocking medications into the “epidural area.”
Epidural kits and Remifentanil are the most current in a string of critical medication and supply shortages the NHS has experienced in recent years. They have bottles for administering blood tests to patients and personal safety gear for NHS employees to use during the Covid epidemic.
