US hospitals still ration masks as stockpiles swell

A year into the pandemic, frontline workers say they still don't have enough personal protective equipment, including N95 masks.

COVID-19 intensive care nurse Mary Turner says she still gets just one per shift, instead of the recommended one per patient. She says some colleagues only get one N95 every three shifts.

"You can't imagine … how, how much, how much we've had to fight," says Turner, who is also president of the Minnesota Nurses Association. "For something this basic. This past year. That should just be a given."

Meantime, U.S. manufacturers like Mike Bowen of Texas-based Prestige Ameritech, say their warehouses are overflowing with masks.

"They should only reuse them if there's nothing else if there's no other choice," says Bowen, who bills his company as the nation's largest domestic surgical mask maker. "But there is a choice. I have millions of respirators. I am drowning in respirators."

At the start of the pandemic, the U.S. and most of the world were heavily dependent on China for protective gear.

The federal government directed U.S. manufacturers to produce more masks, and they did.

"In 2019, we sold about 75,000 respirators per month," says Bowen. "And currently we are making 7.2 million respirators per month. And we're on our way to 9.6 million respirators per month."

But Bowen says he only has customers for about half of his output.

An Associated Press investigation has found the logistical breakdown is due to federal failures over the past year to coordinate supply chains.

Chester "Trey" Moeller was acting deputy chief of staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the last months of the Trump administration. He says the agency responsible for certifying masks did not do enough to connect healthcare providers with manufacturers.

"We have the capacity to get those out to the hospital systems all across the country and it's just not being done right now," he says. "I mean, it's infuriating."

The American Hospital Association says some hospitals in the midst of COVID-19 surges are using the masks faster than the supply chain can replace them. Others are loath to trust masks from unfamiliar suppliers.

Turner suspects there's another reason.

"I can only deduce that they don't want to spend the money. Our hospital systems are profit over patients, profit over the safety of their staff."

In a statement, Turner's employer, North memorial health said its PPE supply decisions "are always guided by our commitment to team member and customer safety." It went on to say that it is "critical to balance daily use across our health system with having ample supply available for future, and potentially expanded, needs."

Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency recently gave Prestige, which works with medical markets, permission to sell its excess masks abroad. But Bowen is reluctant to take that step.

"If we had our druthers, it would be to sell here and help America," he says. "But when we're in a situation where our warehouse won't hold any more respirators, we're going to have to send them wherever we can."

Turner says hospital workers feel caught in the middle.

"It's not like the nurses and the frontline health care workers are in it for their own, for their own gain," she says, her eyes welling with tears. "We're in it to save lives. We're in it to save lives. And we shouldn't be penalized because of that."