The calls started coming in the days after Hurricane Sandy. Flooded dialysis centers had shuttered across New York and New Jersey. Some patients and practitioners didn’t know where to turn. So they dialed Anita Chambers.
“It was difficult to hear stories of patients being driven four to eight hours to find a center that could take them,” Chambers, said recalling the 2012 superstorm. “There were centers open that had all the patients in the day — seeing these patients in the middle of the night.”
As president of Odulair, a Wyoming-based manufacturer of mobile medical units, Chambers knew major storms not only destroyed physical structures but also disrupted the continuity of care. So her company spent three years perfecting a mobile dialysis unit to treat dialysis patients during disaster recovery. Odulair built it on spec. It might just come in handy for the next storm, she thought.
Mobile dialysis units would be great but not cost effective. Dialysis takes many hours and you can’t tie up one truck for one patient without losing money