Accusations fly over missing PPE order

On April 24, Shelly Griffith received some bad news via email.

The CEO of the Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center outside Fort Morgan desperately needed more personal protection equipment, including gowns, masks and sanitizing wipes, which she expected to arrive that week in a nearly $15,000 order being shipped from China.

The senior care facility in Brush is experiencing one of the worst outbreaks of the novel coronavirus in Colorado: As of this week, as many as 20 residents have died, while another 34 residents and 37 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.

But in that email last month, her supplier — Project Graphics, a Connecticut company that previously specialized in graphic design — told her the shipment wasn’t coming because it had been scooped up by the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

The incident turned into a national story — with the head of FEMA on Friday denouncing the accusations in a conference call with reporters. Griffith says Project Graphics deceived her.

The company says its Chinese manufacturer told them FEMA was to blame.

And FEMA says overseas companies are using the federal agency as a scapegoat when they can’t fill their orders for needy consumers around the

world.

Sen. Cory Gardner’s office got involved to help Griffith sort through the mess, while Gov. Jared Polis on Friday said he would support a Department of Justice investigation into federal meddling in state purchasing efforts.

The fiasco underscores the chaotic and competitive environment that nursing homes, companies and states around the country are dealing with as they try to arm their workers with protections needed to prevent people from getting sick.

The lack of domestic production during the pandemic has meant people such as Griffith have been forced to rely on American vendors they have never dealt with, while vendors rely on foreign manufacturers they have never used and shipping methods they have never tried.

The results are accusations, frustrations and, most importantly, nursing homes without the supplies they need.

“When you’re in a crisis situation,” Griffith said, “those are chances you have to take in an effort to get supplies here.”

Pinning the blame

When Griffith believed FEMA had taken her supplies, she reached out to Gardner’s office for help, and staff in the Republican senator’s office connected her Monday with federal officials.

“We got to bottom of the story,” Griffith said. “The vendor did erroneously place blame on FEMA.”

In normal times, Griffith has a list of vendors she uses, she trusts. But in light of the global rush for supplies, Eben Ezer’s managers have been forced to use companies with which they’ve never worked.

“It’s extremely difficult,” she said. “Because you don’t have a relationship with the vendor, you don’t have a full understanding of the actual products you’re trying to procure.”

Griffith said she’ll never order from Project Graphics again.

But Greg McKim, the Connecticut company’s vice president, said he was just going off the information he got from his person on the ground in China who helps him put in supply orders.

Before the pandemic, Project Graphics served as a manufacturer, decorator and a creative service company offering graphic products for visual promotions and event. But after the virus upended American life, the company realized it could utilize connections it already had in China and pivoted to taking orders for personal protection equipment to be sold around the U.S.

When he put in his latest supply order — including supplies for Griffith — with the Chinese manufacturing company Runhe, the company told his representative that it couldn’t be fulfilled because it had been purchased by FEMA.

“I feel bad,” McKim said of the order not making it to the Brush nursing home. “But we’ve done zero wrong here.”

McKim said he believes FEMA has interceded on other orders. Three days ago, he was supposed to have supplies loaded onto a cargo plane from China.

“We were bumped,” McKim said. “The U.S. federal government paid a premium for space on board and bumped us off.”

The bottom line, McKim said, is that if FEMA is in China trying to procure goods, “it’s not too far of a stretch that they’re going to the same companies.”

It’s not just McKim who has voiced these frustrations. Polis in April told CNN that FEMA had swooped in on an order of ventilators bound for Colorado, and has repeatedly expressed his irritation that the state has had to compete with its own federal government for supplies. FEMA has denied the governor’s allegation as well.

During a Friday news conference, Polis, responding to a question about FEMA’s practices, said he “would be thrilled if the (Department of Justice) is looking at federal interdiction of state purchasing efforts.”

An “evolving rumor”

Top FEMA officials took a hard stance Friday against the accusations, using the Eben Ezer center as an example of the misconception that the agency had anything to do with meddling in orders.

“We’re not looking for $700 worth of hand sanitizer,” FEMA administrator Peter Gaynor said on a conference call with reporters.

“We’re looking for a million dollars in hand sanitizer.”

The agency, he said, “continues to hear a version of an evolving rumor that FEMA is redirecting or seizing PPE or medical supplies. This idea is, to put it nicely, absurd.”

Lee dePalo, administrator for FEMA Region 8, which includes Colorado, said the problem lies with overseas manufacturers.

“I have no doubt (Project Graphics) was told FEMA directed this,” he said, noting that foreign companies seem to be pinning the blame on FEMA because they are the face of America’s COVID-19 response.

Meanwhile, back in Brush, there’s an outbreak at a senior living facility struggling to keep people alive. Eben Ezer’s money was refunded, but it never saw a single piece of protective equipment from that order.

“Whatever it is,” Griffith said, “we are not able to get the PPE supplies we have needed.”