Community clinics in dire need of respirator masks, gowns and hand sanitizer

Community clinics in Southern California, which serve low-income populations, are in dire need of personal protective equipment for their medical staff, particularly N-95 respirator masks that offer better protection against infections.

At Southland Integrated Services, a federally qualified health clinic in Garden Grove, mask supplies were dramatically down last week to barely 10, said Tricia Nguyen, chief executive officer. The clinic largely serves the surrounding Vietnamese-American community and a large number of senior citizens.

“We’re getting ready to do (coronavirus) testing in our clinic and we’re very concerned about staff’s health and well-being,” she said.

Nguyen said the clinic can only order three boxes online every week. Each box has 15 masks. Their dental clinic, which sees several patients each day, goes through one box alone before a day’s work is done, she said.

“We’re guarding these masks like they’re gold,” Nguyen said.

Scouring hardware stores

Clinic operators are so desperate that they are on the hunt for masks in hardware stores, paint shops, even auto body shops, said Ellen Ahn, executive director of Korean Community Center in Buena Park, a clinic that caters to the Korean community in that area. Ahn said her clinic serves some of the most vulnerable and at-risk populations in the region, including the homeless and individuals released from prison.

“My clinic was down to 29 respirator masks and people are hoarding these masks,” she said. “Manufacturers are prioritizing hospitals and emergency personnel. We’re getting left behind and I really feel like the public health system is failing us, and we’re on the front lines of health care.”

On Sunday, March 15, Ahn said she picked up N-95 masks from the county, but they are expired masks and can only be used as surgical masks. Both Ahn and Nguyen said local nonprofits such as Buena Park-based Giving Children Hope also have stepped up and donated respirator masks to local community clinics.

“It’s just madness right now,” she said.

IE also suffering shortages

In the Inland Empire, there is dire shortage of both respirator masks and hand sanitizer, said Deanna Stover, president and chief executive officer of the Community Health Association Inland Southern Region, which supports community clinics and health centers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Their members include 19 federally qualified health centers, which operate about 100 clinical sites in the region.

“Everyone is struggling with getting masks and hand sanitizers,” she said. “We are working with Riverside and San Bernardino counties to get a cache of N-95 masks.”

The issue caught community clinics off-guard, Stover said.

“Who knew this was coming four weeks ago?” she said. “Now we’re in a situation where we can’t even purchase hand sanitizer. These are safety net clinics that serve the uninsured and Medi-Cal patients — at-risk patients.”

Currently, these community health centers cannot screen patients over the phone. Large hospital systems are relying heavily on telemedicine, especially during this crisis where there are fears of coronavirus spreading exponentially. Even though state lawmakers last year passed AB 1494, which will allow community clinics to bill telephone consults in emergency situations, the clinics are waiting for the go-ahead from the state, said Jason Lohr, chief executive officer of SAC Health System, which operates four clinics in San Bernardino and one in Indio.

Reusing masks

Lohr said he finds himself having to invest $50,000 so they can do video consults, which are reimbursed by the state. His clinics are running so low on respirator masks that they’ve had to allocate one mask for select employees who screen potential coronavirus patients. Those employees would have to reuse the same mask, he said.

“We’re even running low on surgical masks to put on patients,” Lohr said. “We’ve had to ration those as well.”

The clinics used to leave them in boxes in waiting rooms for patients to use, but Lohr said people were taking entire boxes of masks as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread.

“We’ve been asked to fill surveys and respond to emails asking if we need equipment,” he said. “I’ve filled out every survey and answered every email, but haven’t heard back anything yet.”

Los Angeles County clinics also are experiencing an acute equipment shortage, said Jim Mangia, chief executive officer of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center in Los Angeles, which operates 18 clinics in Los Angeles County. On Friday, March 13, they were saved when the state delivered 600 respirator masks, Mangia said, adding that those masks will only last through next week.

But Mangia said he has ordered a large shipment from a Chinese company where one of his employees’ father works. He faults the federal government for its “lack of response.”

“We’re a federally qualified health clinic,” he said. “But there was no information provided by the federal government for weeks after the first case. Instead of a steady flow of accurate information, there was panic and hoarding and lack of preparation to be able to respond and have equipment available for health care workers on the front lines.”

from News: Redlands Daily Facts https://ift.tt/2TSMS2O