Skip to content
Advertisement

With medical safety gear scarce, the public is stepping up

Advertisement

Increasingly desperate pleas from health care workers and public authorities for donations of face masks and other protective gear are an unsettling sign of just how unprepared American hospitals are for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Alison Cooke, assistant chief of hospital medicine for Kaiser Permanente-San Francisco, warned recently that her institution had less than a week’s supply of medical masks for doctors and nurses. “If you have any masks or safety goggles at home, please consider giving them to your nurse and doctor neighbors,” she wrote on the neighborhood social networking site Nextdoor.

On Friday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged nonessential medical offices and other businesses to donate their protective gear to hospitals. And former federal health official Andy Slavitt tweeted a request to dentists, painters, contractors and plastic surgeons, to give “all you have” in the way of masks, gloves or thermometers to local hospitals.

As supplies of critical protective gear dwindle, nurses and doctors are wiping down and reusing supplies they’d normally toss after one use. On social media, health workers beg for supplies under the hashtag #GetMePPE, using the medical profession’s abbreviation for “personal protective equipment.”

Officials are releasing personal protective equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile, and manufacturers like Honeywell and 3M have boosted production of critical medical supplies.

But for now, that’s not enough. So charities, corporations and ordinary Americans are stepping up, donating everything from N95 masks to hospital gowns, disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer.

If you want to help, here are some answers to questions you might have.

Q: Why is there such a shortage of face masks and other protective gear?

Fear of COVID-19 is generating demand that far outstrips supply. Because no one has immunity to the novel coronavirus, doctors and nurses are exercising caution by wearing protective gear when they see almost any patient with respiratory symptoms or a fever-most of whom don’t have COVID-19.

At the same time, panic-buying of N95 face masks and other gear has reduced available supplies. Some people have even stolen surgical masks and hand sanitizer from clinics. Now, with more than 35,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. as of Monday morning and the number rising sharply, public health officials fear hospitals will soon be overwhelmed with patients, further boosting demand for protective gear.

The supply chain for medical equipment relies heavily on factories overseas – mostly in China and Taiwan _ increasingly commandeered by governments for domestic use. And shortages of the fabric and other raw materials used to make masks are beginning to be a problem. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued bleak guidance for hospitals facing shortages, including using homemade masks. The Deaconess Health System in Indiana recently asked the public to sew and donate masks that meet CDC protocols, as did Providence hospitals in Washington state.

Q: What can I do to help?

Whether you want to donate supplies you have at home or at your company, check a recently launched website, getusppe.org, which lists numerous hospitals in need of protective gear in at least 41 states and gives specific instructions, including drop-off points, for donating to each one.

If you don’t find your local hospital on that website, try contacting the hospital’s supply manager to see what they need most. In times like these, however, it may be difficult to reach overworked hospital staff. If your local hospital is a nonprofit or county-run, check to see if it has a foundation or charity arm that may be organizing donations.

In Santa Clara County, Calif., the charitable foundation for the county’s vast public safety-net hospital system – composed of three hospitals and 11 clinics _ launched a campaign via social media and on its website that has garnered tens of thousands of masks, gloves and gowns, as well as thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer, said Chris Wilder, the Valley Medical Center Foundation’s CEO.

“It’s been very heartening. The generosity has been very strong,” said Wilder, who is now soliciting electro-mechanical equipment such as oxygen concentrators and ventilators.

If you can’t reach a hospital official or foundation, ask health care workers you know what they need. Cyrus Farivar, an Oakland, California-based reporter for NBC News, gathered donations from his neighbors to deliver to Kaiser Permanente.

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation

Advertisement

Latest