Health care workers deserve fighting chance

In the war against the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, they are our front-line troops.

And they need reinforcements. And our help.

On Wednesday a group of nurses put out a plaintive plea for the basic — but crucial — equipment as they wage handto-hand combat against a faceless enemy. We are talking about the essentials — the bare minimum really — that health care professionals need to protect themselves and their patients.

They are in dire need of masks, face shields and gowns.

“We’re putting everybody at risk,” said Maureen May, a registered nurse at Temple University Hospital and president of the 8,500-member Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals. She said critical shortages of personal protective equipment have led to rationing and even reuse of materials.

May was joined on a conference call by U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-2 of Philadelphia, to lay out just how dire the situation is across the region and state, and urge President Donald Trump to fully implement the Defense Production Act.

Boyle commiserated with the struggles of those on the front lines in the health care field.

“It’s disturbing the number of unnecessary risks that they have to go through,” the congressman said. He offered as an example something that would have been unfathomable just a month ago, reusing PPE. A few weeks ago what would have been a “massive violation of protocol” has now become standard practice due to severe shortages, the congressman said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Boyle added that the $16 billion allocated for personal protective equipment in the CARES Act is “frankly not enough.” He suggested what is critically needed is a mandate for mass scale production of PPE materials.

Exactly how critical the situation for health care professionals in the state is became crystal clear a few hours later, when Gov. Tom Wolf issued an executive order allowing Pennsylvania emergency management officials to commandeer equipment deemed critical to health care professionals in their battle against COVID-19. Thatincludes N95 face masks, ventilators and other key medical equipment.

Much like the way he handled the closing of schools across the state, and non-essential businesses, Wolf is not asking; he is ordering.

His latest edict requires private and public health care facilities, manufacturers and other companies to tabulate their supplies of personal protective gear, drugs and other medical equipment, and provide an inventory to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency in five days.

PEMA then has the authority to seize those items in order to make crucial supplies available to areas of the state hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak.

“Combating the pandemic means we all have to work together,” the governor said during his afternoon video conference. “That means we need to make the best use of our medical assets to ensure the places that need them the most, have them.”

He’ll get no argument from Robin Schwartz. She works at Geisinger CMC in Scranton and is a vice president at PASNAP.

She offered a stark view of the conditions on the front lines of this fight.

“We wear our masks for a week,” Schwartz said. “These masks are designed for one day, throw it away, get another mask. We are now using it for a week.”

Peg Lawson has worked as a registered nurse at Albert Einstein Medical Center for 30 years. She echoed the critical nature of the dwindling supplies of key PPE supplies. Lawson said her facility is critically low on all PPE supplies, including N95 masks, barrier gowns, disposable surgical hats and shoe covers.

“At this point, it’s very unsettling,” she said. “We have to put our masks in a brown lunch bag when we are not using it and then replace it on our faces again the next shift that we are working. These are single-use masks normally under normal circumstances and we’re stretching them out as far as we can at Einstein.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’m terrified that my co-workers will be exposed and get sick because our supply stock is being so stringently monitored,” Lawson said.

Over the past few weeks, many have offered plaudits for those in the medical and healthcare fields, our first line of defense against the coronavirus.

Now it’s time to put those words into action. No healthcare provider should be lacking the proper equipment, or be afraid to do their jobs. They are putting their lives on the line for us.

The least we can do is give them a fighting chance.