MASKING THE PROBLEM
The province has procured 3 million N95 masks but is it enough to properly protect our health professionals, wonders B.C. Nurses’ Union president Christine Sorensen
B.C. announced last week it secured three million all-important N95 masks from China that passed Canada’s testing standards.
It was a big boost to the province’s supplies for its front-line health-care workers, particularly in hospitals and other facilities where N95 masks are considered the last line of defence against COVID-19.
But the 48,000-member B.C. Nurses’ Union continues to have concerns with the province’s supply of personal protective equipment, particularly N95 masks, and their access to them and how they are meted out.
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix says the supply from the new Chinese manufacturer will reduce the province’s reliance on traditional supplies of 3M masks, also known as respirators, that have been extremely difficult to procure because of global demand and supply chain issues.
B.C. has also been working to procure other personal protective equipment, such as surgical masks and gowns, with the help of supply chain experts.
“Our success in sourcing safe and effective (personal protective equipment) in B.C. is something to be proud of,” said Dix. “The significant boost of three million N95 equivalent respirators puts us in good stead as we ramp up our health-care system, catch up on scheduled surgery volumes and prepare our province for a potential second wave of COVID-19,” said Dix.
He said the work to source more personal protective equipment continues.
Others, including the federal government, have had issues sourcing equipment.
In May, Ottawa rejected nearly 11 million masks made in China from a Montreal supplier that failed to meet safety specifications.
B.C. Nurses’ Union president Christine Sorensen said nurses appreciate the government’s continuing efforts to secure personal protective equipment, particularly N95 masks.
However, Sorensen said she continues to hear concerns from front-line nurses that they do not have adequate access to protective equipment, particularly masks.
Nurses need free and unfettered access to the equipment and must have the ability to use their professional judgment to utilize such, said Sorensen.
Instead, personal protective equipment is being restricted, sometimes behind locked doors, she said.
For example, recently a nurse could not access an N95 mask that fit her to assist during a code blue, a medical emergency, noted Sorensen.
Other team members were able to assist and the patient survived, but the fact the nurse did not have the N95 mask she needed in the care area, and free and easy access to it, delayed patient care, said Sorensen. “And that can’t go on,” she said.
Nurses are sometimes also being provided masks outside of a box in a plastic zip bag with no knowledge of where the mask came from, or being restricted to a limited number of masks per day, added Sorensen.
Before the pandemic, masks were considered single-use equipment, she said.
“Nurses are essential, but we’re not expendable,” she said. “We need to keep our most important resource, our nursing professionals, healthy, and if that requires providing them a higher level of (personal protective equipment) ... I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
The three million N95 masks make up three-quarters of the masks obtained since March.
B.C. health ministry officials said it was impossible to predict how long the inventory would last. Officials added measures are being put in place to minimize and replenish that inventory.
Dix said the province would be communicating with health-care workers about the new N95 masks and will make sure the masks pass individual fit tests with every single employee that may need to wear them. Sorensen noted that fit testing takes time and they need to be assured the masks fit properly.
The 14,000-member Doctors of B.C. organization welcomed the announced increase in N95 masks.
Doctors of B.C. president Kathleen Ross said there have been challenges around the distribution of personal protective equipment, but that with the number of cases declining in hospitals, the daily use of N95 masks, gowns and gloves has started to drop.
She said, however, that equipment such as eye protection and medical masks used when seeing patients in community practices and in emergency departments is not declining.
“We still need to protect those front-line workers that are evaluating patients. I don’t see that changing,” said Ross.
Mahesh Nagarajan, a professor at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business, said it is not surprising that B.C. is seeking out non-traditional sources for personal protective equipment as demand has skyrocketed around the world because of COVID-19.
Nagarajan, chair of the business school’s operations and logistics division, said there are unknowns coming, particularly in the fall, when schools are expected to restart and more workers will return to offices. There might be a need for guidelines on the use of approved masks with the possibility of additional pressure on demand, which so far has focused largely on the health care sector, he said.