Guam - The Guam Memorial Hospital has been using morphine and Dialudid, while they wait for a new shipment of the commonly used painkiller Demerol. GMH supplier Hospira had refused to send out a new shipment of the drug because of the agency's outstanding balance of nearly $80,000.

According to GMH spokesperson Connor Murphy, the hospital paid that debt off in full on Friday.  However, the strict regulations surrounding Demerol mean the hospital can't refill its stock right away. "They are so tightly controlled by the DEA, so we can't really keep a backup inventory," he explained. "At any one time we only have what's there at our pharmacy and even then it has to be locked up. And any time we make an order to our suppliers we have to send a hard copy of a certain DEA form before they can release it to us."

Meanwhile, the hospital's total account receivables are currently more than $14 million.