PPE stockpile unprepared for pandemic, says auditor general
‘Unaddressed problems’ at centre
Canada’s National Emergency Strategic Stockpile was unprepared to deal with the pandemic due to “long-standing unaddressed problems” that had been known for more than a decade when COVID-19 hit, according to the auditor general.
In a report released Wednesday, Auditor General Karen Hogan reviewed the national stockpile and efforts to purchase personal protective equipment and found Canada was ill-prepared to respond to the pandemic.
“As a result of long-standing unaddressed problems with the systems and practices in place to manage the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile, the Public Health Agency of Canada was not as prepared as it could have been,” she wrote.
News reports have already documented how millions of masks were tossed in the trash before the pandemic and how the stockpile was unable to meet early demands from provinces and territories when COVID first emerged in spring of 2020.
Hogan’s report said the government rebounded well from the early part of the pandemic, but the stockpile issues were well known and had been left unaddressed for more than a decade.
“We found that the unaddressed federal stockpile issues had been brought to the agency’s attention through a series of internal audits dating back to at least 2010,” she said in her report.
Hogan found the stockpile had weak or non-existent systems for tracking inventory and expiry dates and made decisions on what to buy based on its budget, not on what might be needed. She said when doing the audit they couldn’t determine what was actually available when COVID hit, because the inventory was so weak.
“What we found is that the quality of the data was such that we couldn’t rely on what the agency estimated was the stock on hand.”
She said the government pivoted quickly to respond to the problem, but the whole point of a stockpile is to be prepared.
“You don’t wait for a rainy day to rush out and buy an umbrella. You take the time, you invest in the umbrella in your closet and that’s exactly what the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile should be.”
Health Minister Patty Hajdu said she welcomed the input from the auditor. Asked directly when she realized Canada didn’t have sufficient reserve supplies of PPE Hajdu didn’t answer, but said the problem went beyond just the supplies.
“It really wasn’t just about the stock that was contained in the stockpile but it was about the processes that the national stockpile was using to support provinces and territories.”
Hajdu said the government has done a lot to address problems already, but work is underway to ensure the stockpile is rebuilt and ready for future emergencies.
“The planning work is really about how to ensure that we have a national stockpile, that will be responsive and flexible enough to be able to expand quickly, but also to have the right equipment.”
The audit also looked at the government’s purchase of PPE after the pandemic hit and found that it generally did well. Hogan found some areas where the government took on more risk than usual, but found that understandable in the pandemic.
“The department accepted some risks in order to procure large quantities of equipment in a market where the supply could not always meet demand. Otherwise, fewer pieces of equipment would have been available to provinces and territories.”
Hogan said the department didn’t do enough to mitigate the risks it took on with advanced payments and speeding up procurement processes and should have done more, but she also acknowledged the difficult environment of buying PPE in a pandemic.
“We found that these risks were not offset by any planned mitigation strategy. As a result, while the department was able to speed up the procurement process, it could not always demonstrate that it exercised the needed oversight.”
The government launched a $81-million lawsuit recently against a Montreal firm, alleging it failed to deliver masks that met the government’s quality control standards.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner suggested the auditor’s report demonstrates the government moved too slowly purchasing PPE.
“The Trudeau Liberals waited 10 days after the WHO declared COVID-19 a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ before it announced that it would be bulk purchasing PPE,” she said in a statement.
The auditor however found no issue with the time it took for the government to begin bulk purchases for provinces and territories.
“The agency quickly moved to bulk purchasing to meet the unprecedented demand for PPE and medical devices, and it outsourced much of the warehousing and logistical support it needed.”