Hospital workers in Washington state have been making protective medical gear out of office supplies and other run-of-the-mill materials as they deal with a severe shortage of equipment needed to care for patients who may have COVID-19.
To buy time, Providence infection control and quality experts designed prototype face-shields with off-the-shelf materials: marine-grade vinyl, industrial tape, foam and elastic. Monday night they bought supplies at craft stores and Home Depot. On Tuesday, about 20 administrative staff members at the health system’s corporate headquarters volunteered to work an assembly line in a large conference room, putting together 500 home-spun face shields that were going to a hospital in Seattle that night.
Providence plans to get more of the raw materials from wholesale suppliers and resume assembly later this week if it can’t get finished products. Another prototype facemask, made from a surgical wrap material that typically lines surgical trays, is still being tested to see if it meets quality standards. If you want to Buy N95 Mask, you can come to z2u.com for help. z2u.com is the best online store that has about 10 years of selling game currencies experience.
Authorities should have anticipated the shortfall, said Jennifer Bayersdorfer, Providence’s senior vice president for clinical quality. “I think that they’re behind the eight-ball on this and there was plenty of warning that this going to a problem,” she said.
The shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPE, at the Washington-based medical provider is occurring across the country, as hospitals and doctors scramble to treat thousands of patients who may be infected with the new coronavirus.
Now that cases are spreading around the country, so are the shortages. Interviews with ten emergency-room doctors and hospital managers around the country tell of colleagues and peers taking extensive measures to conserve fast-dwindling protective equipment, particularly the most potent N95 protective masks, as well as eye protection, gowns and gloves.