In May 2012 (on 20th and 29th) severe earthquakes hit EmiliaRomagna, causing huge damages to infrastructures, factories, houses and 30 casualties.
Gambro Medolla Distribution Center & manufacturing plants were seriously damaged: key priority was continuity of supply lifesaving devices for ESRD patients in, since about 20.000 dialysis patients in 1000 clinics in Italy were potentially at risk of interruption in medical devices supply.
Recovering medical products trapped inside Gambro DC, became absolute priority both for Gambro and for Italian National Health Service (NHS).
A crisis taskforce composed by NHS, SIN (Italian Society of Nephrologists), Assobiomedica (Italian Trade Association of Medical Devices), ANED (Italian Association of ESRD patients) and Government was established.
Actions were launched in order to ensure dialysis patients community with medical supplying:
Disasters of such magnitudes, when affecting industrialized areas, could cause severe consequences, especially in case of lifesaving-machines manufacturing sites.
Thanks to an immediate reaction, no dialysis patient was damaged by this extremely challenging situation.
Lessons learnt brought Gambro to adopt different risk management measures: