I think the best way to describe this is as an example of what goes on in my department on a day-to-day basis. Because we're told there's only 20%, or 50%, or 80% supply, on a day-by-day basis it's like we're horse-trading: If I can reduce so much activity to do a certain test, can I move a few millicuries over to another test to try to get that test done for that patient? This is day in, day out, day in, day out for our technologists.
Our patients are still getting the tests done. There are days when there are no isotopes, and if I have to do a study called a lung scan to look at blood clots in the lung and that patient cannot have the CT scan, that patient may or may not get the full study done on that day because I will not have the amount of isotope needed to do it. So a study that would have taken an hour now takes two days because I have to wait until the next day to do the second part. This is very stressful on our clerical staff and on our technologists. They come to me on a day-to-day basis and say, we need leadership; we need supplies; we need to get this fixed; we cannot continue on as is.
I think everybody here is right: we are coping. We are coping in an unsustainable, fragile system that is beginning to fray at the edges more and more.