As Covid-19 cases surge, health care workers struggle to manage PPE

As Covid-19 cases surge, health care workers struggle to manage PPE

 

As the country grapples with surging coronavirus cases, some hospitals, clinics and nursing facilities are still struggling to maintain adequate supplies of personal protective equipment.   After international supply chains were severely disrupted early in the pandemic, states were left battling each other for limited shares of PPE. Hospitals and other facilities, especially in the Northeast, faced dwindling supplies and obstacles to obtaining more.   Months into the pandemic, concerns still linger in some facilities.   "While hospitals and health systems are better positioned with on-hand inventory levels, serious concerns continue regarding the availability of PPE and other supplies as Covid cases continue to increase across the country and we enter the flu season," Mike Schiller, the director of supply chain at the Association for Health Care Resource and Materials Management at the American Hospital Association, told CNN in an email. During a recent White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, Brig. Gen. David Sanford said the Strategic National Stockpile is growing, and has a four-month surge capability of N95 masks.   However, health care workers around the country said hospitals and other facilities are still using PPE much differently than before the pandemic. Doctors describe storing N95 respirators in paper bags between uses, and making supply conservation a part of the routine.   "My colleagues across the country are reusing N95s for as long as they can. Many hospitals are still using hand sanitizer that they make in house instead of buying it from purchasers, et cetera," said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University, who helped found the nonprofit Get Us PPE.