Nursing Homes Await Guidance on Conserving Face Masks, Gloves

(Bloomberg Law) -- Health-care facilities are awaiting federal guidance on how to better conserve their short supply of surgical gowns, face masks, and other protective gear during the new coronavirus pandemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to issue guidance on Wednesday detailing how nursing homes, hospital clinics, and other providers can best utilize their supply, Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, said in a briefing with reporters.

One in five U.S. nursing homes could run out of surgical gowns, face masks, and gloves next week due to increased demand from the Covid-19 outbreak, Parkinson said. Another 20% of nursing homes could run out the following week.

Parkinson said Wednesday that rationing protective equipment could help nursing homes overcome the shortage. Dr. David Gifford, the association’s chief medical officer, cited one nursing home that started using trash bags for surgical gowns and making their own masks.

The CDC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the expected guidance.

The coronavirus has already been found in between 20 and 30 nursing homes nationwide, Gifford said. No reports of additional infections among nursing home staff have been reported.

Gifford and Parkinson are urging manufacturers and medical providers that have shut down during the pandemic to turn over their unused equipment to frontline health-care workers until supplies can be beefed up.

Gifford likened the dire situation to public efforts during World War II to save and provide resources for American soldiers.

“Our troops here are the health-care workers and hospitals, the nursing homes, assisted living, clinics,” Gifford said. He urged state officials to coordinate efforts to collect unused equipment and provide it to these facilities.

Parkinson said the public’s response to nursing homes’ needs and efforts to contain the virus over the next one to two months “will literally decide whether thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands of older people, many of whom live in our residences, live or die.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Pugh in Washington at tpugh@bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fawn Johnson at fjohnson@bloomberglaw.com; Alexis Kramer at akramer@bloomberglaw.com

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