FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus

[FM123]

*this is just so outrageous and beyond unacceptable

(New York Times, via msn) 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.

“People hate to complain about personal protective equipment they’re getting for free but many of these items are just useless,” said Brendan Williams, president of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, which has been fielding a flurry of calls about the defective gear from nursing homes it represents. “It’s mystifying that the government would think this is acceptable.”

Read More: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fema-sends-faulty-protective-gear-to-nursing-homes-battling-virus/ar-BB179jcE?li=BBnb7Kz

[crickets]

1. FEMA essentially provided boxes of trash instead of PPEs. Unconscionable. nt

[Midnight Writer]

2. I wish Trump was a shipping clerk. The whole Country would be better off.

[Nevilledog]

3. They traded in all the killer mold trailers from Katrina.

This is the best they could get.

[Maru Kitteh]

4. They gave us those small gloves in boxes stating they expired in 2009.

We got the underwear masks. I appreciate the gesture from Hanes, and they are infused with both silver and copper. Not useful for a clinical setting but thoughtful nonetheless.

The gowns. Oh my god the gowns. I am small so they cover me adequately, but they are made of a thick, stiff, coarse plastic that feels like a blue body bag.

Our DoN and supply clerk somehow managed to find us real 3M N95 medical masks but our supply is woefully short of our needs. The N95s they sent us we returned because the were soiled, crumbling and/or crumpled and utterly useless.