FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus
Expired surgical masks. Isolation gowns that resemble oversize trash bags. Extra-small gloves that are all but useless for the typical health worker’s hands.
Nursing home employees across the country have been dismayed by what they’ve found when they’ve opened boxes of protective medical gear sent by the federal government, part of a $134 million effort to provide facilities a 14-day supply of equipment considered critical for shielding their vulnerable residents from the coronavirus.
The shipments have included loose gloves of unknown provenance stuffed into unmarked Ziploc bags, surgical masks crafted from underwear fabric and plastic isolation gowns without openings for hands that require users to punch their fists through the closed sleeves. Adhesive tape must be used to secure them.
Health regulators in California have advised nursing homes not to use the gowns, saying they present an infection-control risk, especially when doffing contaminated gowns that must be torn off.
Some nursing homes have received masks with brittle elastic bands that snap when stretched. None of the shipments have included functional N95 respirators, the virus-filtering face masks that are the single most important bulwark against infection.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fema-sends-faulty-protective-gear-to-nursing-homes-battling-virus/ar-BB179jcE?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP
Okay which one of Trump's sycophants sold this shit to the government?
Surgical masks crafted from underwear fabric? Hope it hadn't been worn before.
= new reply since forum marked as read
A nurse donned a blue gown with no openings for hands at St. Paul Elder Services in Kaukauna, Wis.
A surgical mask sent to nursing homes in New Hampshire, top, with flimsy paper loops to hook on to ears, compared with a normal surgical mask with elastic straps, bottom.Credit...via New Hampshire Health Care Association
