How Transportation Delays Are Affecting Disposable Medical Products
The pandemic has created supply chain problems for nearly all products that are primarily imported from abroad. The same is true for PPE and other medical and surgical materials. Demand surged as hospitals and medical centers were focused on fighting the spread of COVID-19, and the demand for some products continues as they distribute the vaccine.
What has made the supply chain problems even worse is that demand for other imported products has greatly increased as COVID-19 restrictions ease and people return to their everyday lives. The results are bottlenecks in the country's ports.
Shipping container shortage creating transportation issues
Many of the disposable medical products we import into the United States, like Face Masks, Gowns, Drapes, and others manufactured with medical nonwovens, come from China. The problem is that China is experiencing a shipping container shortage, because the quantity of goods being shipped out of the US to China has dropped. Without the US exports bringing back boxes and containers, Chinese exporters aren't able to send products back to the United States easily. The situation has become so serious that US shipping companies have started to send containers back to China empty.
Transportation delays at US ports of entry
In addition to a shortage of shipping containers, many US Pacific ports, like Los Angeles and Long Beach, have huge backups of ships waiting days to unload their cargo. Since the peak of 40 ships last November, there are still around 20 vessels on any given day that are forced to drop anchor and wait up to a week to enter the port facilities.
The reasons for these traffic jams and transportation issues are most likely related to labor and equipment shortages. At many ports there are simply not enough dock workers, truck drivers, and trucks themselves to unload and haul away the goods. In mid-April it was taking five to seven days to unload a container ship instead of the usual two to three. These metrics are changing by the minute. Even after clearing customs, we are seeing products sitting in ports for over 30 days, waiting for US freight transportation.
The outlook for supply chain problems moving forward
The certainty with transportation logistics is frankly unclear. As a result, our team at Welmed is finding creative solutions to overcome transportation issues and get our customers the PPE, medical, and surgical products their facilities require. In some cases, it's working with customers to find alternate product (with inventory in stock), leveraging US Factories, and accelerating freight where possible. We are changing the way we usually do business to meet the current conditions.
Welmed is being as flexible as possible to ensure your needs are met. If you are having difficulties acquiring disposable medical products, then contact one of our Sales Managers today.