Ontario dealing with ‘critically’ low inventory of protective equipment amid COVID-19 outbreak
By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Mar 18, 2020 9:26 am
Nurses working out of a hospital in Kingston were informed Tuesday of new measures to preserve the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) required to safely test patients for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), with officials warning inventory in the province is now “critically short.”
Nurses were advised of the new standards in an email from high-ranking Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) staff. Health care workers at KHSC, which has two sites – Hotel Dieu Hospital and Kingston General Hospital – were told that “preserving PPE (is) now critical” and that it is now “vital that all staff use routine PPE only when required.”
KHSC is also dialling back the number of operating rooms it has available and restricting elective surgeries, for non-emergency or -essential services, in order to preserve both PPE and hospital beds that they might need during the pandemic. Kingston’s hospitals also took earlier measures to protect against the spread of COVID-19, like asking their staff to enter through specific entrances, screening all staff and other entrants and reducing visitation.
An Ontario doctor who works outside of the KHSC confirmed that he, too, was aware that Ontario was facing a scarcity of PPE.
iPolitics is not identifying sources because it agreed to keep the names of health care workers names private to allow them to share information.
Health care workers require various types of masks, gloves and gowns to treat or test patients for COVID-19, since it is mainly transmitted through droplets or by close contact.
A spokesperson for provincial Health Minister Christine Elliott did not respond when asked by email if the Ontario government would acknowledge if nurses and doctors in the province were currently facing a shortage of PPE necessary for the testing and treatment of COVID-19.
“Ontario is at all times in active discussions with our manufacturing and supply chain partners to procure more personal protective equipment,” Elliott’s spokesperson Hayley Chazan said in response to an earlier question.
In a newsletter sent to Ontario’s doctors early Wednesday morning, Ontario Medical Association (OMA) President Sohail Gandhi applauded Elliott and Premier Doug Ford’s government’s decision to put $50 million towards purchasing PPE and other supplies for frontline health care workers.
“The OMA has consistently been telling the Ministry that we need more PPE and that we need a plan to ensure they are deployed appropriately,” Gandhi’s email read.
Last week, Ontario had to tighten guidelines around who could be tested for COVID-19, because it faced a limited supply of nasal swabs that are used to test for the coronavirus. Public Health Ontario (PHO) notified health care workers on Tuesday that it would now allow different types of swabs for COVID-19 testing, but if the swabs weren’t validated earlier at a PHO lab that results will be returned with a disclaimer.
Kingston reported its first three cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. All three cases were in patients over the age of 40 who recently travelled outside of Canada. As of Ontario’s most recent update on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., it had tested 11,171 people for COVID-19. 9415 tests came back negative, 1567 were still pending and 183 tested positive. Five cases were deemed resolved, while one person have died while having the illness.
According to Canada’s head of public health, Theresa Tam, by Tuesday more than 37,000 people had been tested for the coronavirus in Canada, with more than 440 total tests coming back as positive. There had been 180,000 cases of COVID-19 identified worldwide in 160 countries at that time.
The World Health Organization (WHO) urged manufacturers of PPE to increase their output by 40 per cent as the spread of COVID-19 progressed towards its own declaration of causing a global pandemic.
“Without secure supply chains, the risk to healthcare workers around the world is real. Industry and governments must act quickly to boost supply, ease export restrictions and put measures in place to stop speculation and hoarding. We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers first,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a press release.
Health care organizations in areas including Australia and the United States have already faced PPE shortages of their own, as the global outbreak has worsened.
https://ipolitics.ca/2020/03/18/ontario-dealing-with-critically-low-inventory-of-protective-equipment-amid-covid-19-outbreak/
By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Mar 18, 2020 9:26 am
Nurses working out of a hospital in Kingston were informed Tuesday of new measures to preserve the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) required to safely test patients for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), with officials warning inventory in the province is now “critically short.”
Nurses were advised of the new standards in an email from high-ranking Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) staff. Health care workers at KHSC, which has two sites – Hotel Dieu Hospital and Kingston General Hospital – were told that “preserving PPE (is) now critical” and that it is now “vital that all staff use routine PPE only when required.”
KHSC is also dialling back the number of operating rooms it has available and restricting elective surgeries, for non-emergency or -essential services, in order to preserve both PPE and hospital beds that they might need during the pandemic. Kingston’s hospitals also took earlier measures to protect against the spread of COVID-19, like asking their staff to enter through specific entrances, screening all staff and other entrants and reducing visitation.
An Ontario doctor who works outside of the KHSC confirmed that he, too, was aware that Ontario was facing a scarcity of PPE.
iPolitics is not identifying sources because it agreed to keep the names of health care workers names private to allow them to share information.
Health care workers require various types of masks, gloves and gowns to treat or test patients for COVID-19, since it is mainly transmitted through droplets or by close contact.
A spokesperson for provincial Health Minister Christine Elliott did not respond when asked by email if the Ontario government would acknowledge if nurses and doctors in the province were currently facing a shortage of PPE necessary for the testing and treatment of COVID-19.
“Ontario is at all times in active discussions with our manufacturing and supply chain partners to procure more personal protective equipment,” Elliott’s spokesperson Hayley Chazan said in response to an earlier question.
In a newsletter sent to Ontario’s doctors early Wednesday morning, Ontario Medical Association (OMA) President Sohail Gandhi applauded Elliott and Premier Doug Ford’s government’s decision to put $50 million towards purchasing PPE and other supplies for frontline health care workers.
“The OMA has consistently been telling the Ministry that we need more PPE and that we need a plan to ensure they are deployed appropriately,” Gandhi’s email read.
Last week, Ontario had to tighten guidelines around who could be tested for COVID-19, because it faced a limited supply of nasal swabs that are used to test for the coronavirus. Public Health Ontario (PHO) notified health care workers on Tuesday that it would now allow different types of swabs for COVID-19 testing, but if the swabs weren’t validated earlier at a PHO lab that results will be returned with a disclaimer.
Kingston reported its first three cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. All three cases were in patients over the age of 40 who recently travelled outside of Canada. As of Ontario’s most recent update on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., it had tested 11,171 people for COVID-19. 9415 tests came back negative, 1567 were still pending and 183 tested positive. Five cases were deemed resolved, while one person have died while having the illness.
According to Canada’s head of public health, Theresa Tam, by Tuesday more than 37,000 people had been tested for the coronavirus in Canada, with more than 440 total tests coming back as positive. There had been 180,000 cases of COVID-19 identified worldwide in 160 countries at that time.
The World Health Organization (WHO) urged manufacturers of PPE to increase their output by 40 per cent as the spread of COVID-19 progressed towards its own declaration of causing a global pandemic.
“Without secure supply chains, the risk to healthcare workers around the world is real. Industry and governments must act quickly to boost supply, ease export restrictions and put measures in place to stop speculation and hoarding. We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers first,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a press release.
Health care organizations in areas including Australia and the United States have already faced PPE shortages of their own, as the global outbreak has worsened.
https://ipolitics.ca/2020/03/18/ontario-dealing-with-critically-low-inventory-of-protective-equipment-amid-covid-19-outbreak/
