We cannot lose health workers for lack of protective gear
We can’t afford to lose health workers to this virus, says Dr. Adam Kassam.
This is war, against a ruthless enemy that doesn’t discriminate based on nationality, ethnicity or political philosophy. It is quick, silent and deadly. In a span of several months it has destabilized global economies and brought health-care systems to their knees. The COVID-19 battle is one of the most acute threats humanity has faced in a generation, and in Canada, we’re at the tip of the spear.
The situation in Italy should not only concern us, it should inject a dire national hustle into elected officials across all levels of governments to prepare our healthcare system and scale up the necessary infrastructure to tackle this growing crisis.
Many of my front-line physician colleagues have been urging more swift and decisive government action. Yet these pleas to protect health-care workers, who are facing the most challenging onslaught of care delivery in their lifetimes, seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Doctors have been sounding these alarms for weeks, pointing to the advanced and the well-documented experience of physicians in China, Italy and the United States.
The growing shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) is a crisis underlying the larger one we face. Without enough gloves, gowns, masks and goggles, our doctors, nurses and first responders will become sick. If they’re sick, they can’t care for patients who need their expertise. Crucially, we do not have an unlimited supply of health-care workers, and data from Italy suggest that 10 per cent of all COVID-19 positive cases have been medical staff. A health-care worker at The Ottawa Hospital has already been diagnosed with COVID-19.
During war, the state needs to equip its soldiers with the proper armour and ammunition to be safe and successful. This war’s battlefronts are in hospitals, clinics, longterm care centres and other health-care delivery interfaces. What health-care workers are begging for right now is enough PPE over the prolonged course of this pandemic to safely protect them, and in turn their families and patients.
PPE shortages are a reality across the province. The fact that the provincial government has solicited other businesses to donate masks — dental practices, nail salons, construction companies — means that they don’t have enough supply and are now reliant on civil society charity. This is a failure of leadership at the highest levels to mobilize resources when they had adequate runway to prepare, given the escalation of the crisis in other countries.
What we now face is a significant global supply crunch of PPE that threatens our ability for procurement. This exists even in the United States, where different state governments have had to compete with each other on the open market for respirators and ventilators. Provincial and federal governments should therefore aggressively plan for contingencies.
This should start by the immediate invocation of the Emergency Measures Act by the federal government, followed by the temporary nationalization of regional manufacturing to accelerate the mass production of PPE and ventilators. The conversion of now-vacant hotels into subacute centres to off-load hospital cases should be prioritized alongside the repurposing of arenas, stadiums, gymnasia and convention centres into COVID-19 care centres.
Health-care workers should be apprised of realtime figures on the numbers of PPE available at institutions at which they work, the shortfall expected and when they should be able to expect deliveries of these precious resources. Those putting their lives on the line deserve to know how long they’re being asked to do so without the tools needed to protect them. Anything less is criminal.
In the absence of an evidence-based treatment and vaccine for COVID-19, we need to brace for larger numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Until a breakthrough comes, if we have any hope of overcoming the largest existential generational threat we face as a nation, our governments need to get us our damn PPE.
Dr. Adam Kassam (@AdamKassamMD) is a Toronto-based physician who writes about health care, public policy and international affairs.