Frontline healthcare workers need personal protective equipment
We need a complete mobilization of the entire U.S. manufacturing sector to meet the grave challenge before us. Otherwise lives will be needlessly lost.
OP-ED: Health Systems In Dire Need Of Personal Protective Equipment
On behalf of nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists and so many other health care co-workers everywhere, we are asking for a true national response to this lack of PPE. If mobilized appropriately the supply could be replenished in 2-3 weeks and save thousands of health care co-workers.
Volunteers sew masks for health workers facing shortages
“If nurses quit or become too fatigued or even become ill themselves, then we don’t have a frontline anymore,” said Wendy Byard of Lapeer, Michigan.
Hospital staff are reusing masks – shortage is dire and risk is increasing
“They will have to take the mask off, put it in a paper bag and put their name on the front of the bag with a Sharpie and they’ll carry that around with them for three days,” she said. “That means they might go into a room with a patient who doesn’t have COVID and there’s a possibility they might get it.”
‘I’m Mentally and Physically Exhausted.’ Healthcare Workers Battling Coronavirus Are Running Out of Protective Gear
Dr. Matthew Baldwin, a critical care physician and pulmonary specialist at New York Presbyterian-Columbia Hospital says he expects the problem to get worse from here. “We’ve had an exponential increase in the number of patients that have come into hospital and have been hospitalized in the last 48 hours,” he told TIME on March 21. “I think there’s genuine concern now, that in the near future, we will run out of personal protective equipment.”
Health care workers are running out of face masks. They’re asking people to donate.
Public health officials warned about a strain in the supply chain for masks and other equipment in late February, when the pandemic started to spread in the US, which prompted regular people to snatch up medical supplies. By hoarding masks and respirators, civilians have contributed to the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers. (The US government is also partly to blame for overwhelming the health care system by not taking fast enough action to test citizens.)