Oregon official says state is quickly running through protective equipment for hospital workers

JAKE THOMAS/Oregon Capital Bureau

Health care providers in Oregon are running out of protective masks, surgical gowns and other personal protective equipment that protects them from contracting the coronavirus.

“I am deeply concerned that within the next short weeks we will have providers who need to treat patients without masks, without face shields and those kinds of things,” Oregon Health Authority director Pat Allen told a legislative committee tasked with responding to the coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday. “That’s a critical problem.”

Allen said the state will run out of personal protective equipment without a significant change at the federal level. Oregon officials are expecting a surge in Oregonians infected with COVID-19, estimating there could be 75,000 cases by mid-May.

Allen said that the state started out with almost 590,000 respirator masks that protect against airborne hazards and has used a fourth of them. For surgical masks, the state has 18,000 left after starting out with 49,000. The state had 23,000 surgical gowns and has burned through 83 percent of those, he said.

The state now is rounding up donations of supplies from medical offices that have them to spare for COVID-19, including dentists and veterinarians.

State officials are asking medical and other private sector companies to donate new masks, gowns and gloves to the state’s supply. Donations will be inspected, inventoried and distributed to medical professional across the state working with COVID-19 patients.

Preparing for a special legislative session, the committee heard from government, business and labor representatives about the challenges they faced from the pandemic.

Allen said that in response to the dwindling supply of protective equipment, Plan A has been for health care providers to restock using their ordinary suppliers.

“The challenge, of course, is that those suppliers are generally in China, and China has prohibited the export of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies,” said Allen.

Plan B, he said, has been to use the state stockpile to distribute supplies to health care providers. He said that’s what the state has been doing but there is a finite amount of supplies.

Plan C has been to access the national stockpile, but Oregon so far has only received 10 percent of what it’s asked for with a promise of another 1 percent, he said. Plan D is to access emergency federal stockpiles held by the military and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Allen said the state is currently on Plan E, which he described as looking “creatively in our own backyard” for supplies available in a non-medical environment. He said the state could look to high-tech manufacturing or begin producing its own supply.

“And there’s no Plan F available,” he said.

“Nobody is getting everything they’re asking for because we’re trying to get this stuff to last as long as we possibly can,” Allen said.

Gov. Kate Brown has issued an executive order directing health care providers to preserve surgical masks, gowns and gloves for health care workers treating COVID-19 patients. She banned all elective surgery.

Earlier this month, Brown wrote to Vice President Mike Pence, who is overseeing the federal response, to request 400,000 respirators, gowns and gloves, Tyvek suits, Biocell Ambulance Protection Systems, in addition to 75 to 100 ventilators. During a call with reporters Thursday, Brown said Oregon has received about 25 percent of its request from the federal government after a shipment came in.

The Oregon Capital Bureau in Salem is staffed by reporters from EO Media, Pamplin Media Group and the Salem Reporter and provides state government and political news to their newspapers and media around Oregon, including YachatsNews.com