Protective gear scarce
Nurses concerned about need to reuse items
The personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply in the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis is running low again across the U.S.
The personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply during the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. is running low again as the virus resumes its rapid spread and the number of hospitalized patients climbs.
A national nursing union is concerned that gear has to be reused. A doctors association warns that physicians’ offices are closed because they cannot get masks and other supplies. And Democratic members of Congress are pushing the Trump administration to devise a national strategy to acquire and distribute gear in anticipation of the crisis worsening into the fall.
“We’re five months into this, and there are still shortages of gowns, hair covers, shoe covers, masks, N95 masks,” said Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, who cited results from a survey of the union’s members. “They’re being doled out, and we’re still being told to reuse them.”
When the crisis exploded in March and April in hot spots such as New York City, the situation was so desperate that nurses turned plastic garbage bags into protective gowns. The lack of equipment forced states and hospitals into desperate, expensive bidding wars against other hospitals, the federal government and other countries.
In general, supplies of protective gear are more robust now, and many states and major hospital chains say they are in better shape. But medical professionals and some lawmakers have cast doubt on those improvements as shortages begin to reappear.
Dr. Aisha Terry said that she has good access as an associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University in Washington, but some non-academic and rural health facilities have much less.
“I think overall, production, distribution and access has improved,” Terry said. “But the fear is that we will become complacent” and allow supplies to dwindle in some places.
In a letter to Congress last week, the health department in DuPage County, Illinois, said all hospitals in the county are reusing protective gear “in ways that were not originally intended and are probably less safe than the optimal use.”
The American Medical Association wrote to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress calling for a coordinated national strategy to buy and allocate gear.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, released a memo last week ahead of a congressional committee hearing that raised concerns about looming problems in the supply chain. Her report was based on interviews with unnamed employees at medical supply companies, one of whom warned that raw material for gowns is not available at any price in the amounts needed, leading to an “unsustainable” situation.
“It would seem like in less than 30 days, we’re going to have a real crisis,” said Democratic Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill.