All over the country, our hospitals are running low on one common substance — and patients and their families are scratching their heads over what’s behind the shortage.

The drug — sodium bicarbonate — contains the active ingredient baking soda and “reduces stomach acid. It is used as an antacid to treat heartburn, indigestion, and upset stomach,” according to WebMD.com.

“This is really a problem we’re struggling with right now.”

The drug is used during various surgeries and with some types of chemotherapy.

“Hospitals have been struggling with a dwindling supply of the medicine for months — one of the suppliers, Pfizer, has said that it had a problem with an outside supplier but that the situation worsened a few weeks ago,” The New York Times reported on May 21.

Patients and families should be aware that surgeries could be postponed due to this shortage, as hospitals face tough decisions about how to handle the dwindling supplies.

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“As I talk to colleagues around the country, this is really a problem we’re all struggling with right now,” Mark Sullivan, the head of pharmacy operations at Vanderbilt University Hospital and Clinics in Nashville, Tennessee, told The Times.

Manufacturing companies Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer are the primary suppliers in the country.

The companies have run out of sodium bicarbonate, The Times noted. This has left hospitals “scrambling to stockpile vials” of the drug.

“The Pfizer Injectables business is currently experiencing shortages on several injectable drugs used in hospitals and other clinical settings,” Pfizer informed customers in a letter on May 16. “We understand and regret the challenges these shortages pose to clinicians and patients. We are expediting our recovery activities, and are sharing details and timing so you can plan accordingly.”

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Pfizer, the main supplier of the drug, says some forms of sodium bicarbonate injectables will not be delivered until late June — while other forms will not be delivered until August or later.

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“While the causes of individual shortages vary, the majority are due to three main factors — manufacturing, distribution, and third-party supplier delays,” Pfizer wrote to customers.

A similar shortage occurred in 2012 for sodium bicarbonate.

“Because of the supply-and-demand factors involved, when hospitals can get their hands on product from other producers, it comes at a much higher cost,” FiercePharma.com reported. “That is what happened several years ago [in 2014] when a shortage of saline solution, another common but essential hospital product, plagued hospitals.”

“In that case, however, hospitals got suspicious because there were a number of producers, and ever-rising prices didn’t solve the supply issue,” FiercePharma noted.