The Safety of Health Care Workers
There is a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) endangering health workers worldwide. If they are not safe on the frontline, how will anyone be safe?
There are shortages of several things such as masks, gowns, face shields, and gloves. This problem arose in the beginning, but is coming back with a daunting entrance.
Nurses say they are reusing N95 masks for days and even weeks at a time. Doctors say they can’t reopen offices because there is not enough personal protective equipment. State officials say they have scoured U.S. and international suppliers for PPE and struggle to get orders filled.
According to Kelly Magsamen, a former Pentagon official who directed strategic planning at the Nation Security Council under President Barack Obama, said the government could have taken action much earlier to prevent the slow supply that we are currently facing. She states that if a Defense Production Act was put into place, “they would have saved a lot of the heartaches we are seeing right now with respect to PPE shortages across the country.”