Posted on 04/04/2020 4:43:06 AM PDT by ManHunter
As I've mentioned in a previous post, my wife and I own a personal care home with almost 50 residents in Western Pennsylvania. We've been buying PPE supplies in bulk from Amazon for quite some time, but, this morning, my wife tried to order masks, gloves and sanitary supplies and, after almost an hour on a live chat with Amazon, discovered that we can no longer order from Amazon. Seems that Amazon is limiting the sale of PPE to hospitals and "government agencies."
So, in addition to the residents at the tens of thousands of skilled care, assisted living, nursing homes, personal care homes, etc., around the country, our employees are wide open to exposure as well. Good move, Amazon...
Maybe try contacting your county government, see if they can arrange distribution form the State. It looks like the DOD will be supervising supply changes now.
Good thing I’ve been picking up these masks over the last 10 years for a scenario just like this. And no, I’m not giving them to HC workers. I didn’t believe our govt. and HC “experts” for a second when they said we didn’t need to wear masks. Oops! Except now we do. I think we’re officially the frogs in the pots.
Can you contact your state agency? You may be able to get some from their stores, or contact FEMA
Perhaps limiting some brands but latex gloves and various masks are still available - I checked just now,
I’ll pass on what the acute care around the corner is doing..
They gave the county health officer a list of what their ‘ideal requirements are’ and ‘minimum requirements are’ for supplies per week. They did this early (mostly because I’d been hammering the county OES about facilities for the last two years in working them into every emergency plan after we had an evacuation order and pretty much everyone there had zero transport...)
They’re working with a local quilting group to ensure every resident has at least three cloth masks (blues day 1, greens day 2, oranges day 3, reds for residents with any symptom of communicable illness.) Each day, everyone helps those in the facility put on their masks to wear, the previous day’s masks are collected and washed separately then sterilized later in the day. (when the oranges go on, the greens are collected for wash and sterilization, the blues are moved to the ready position, extras of oranges are at the nurse’s stations in case the ones the residents are wearing become unusable.)
To conserve supplies, gloves are used only in rooms where red masks are present and must be disposed of as soon as the room is left. A cloth red mask is used over the caregiver’s PPE mask and is removed after leaving the room, and the outer layer of clothing is replaced. Face shields are required in any room with a red mask. These were actually supplied by the high school’s woodworking classroom.
Hand sterilization stations are set up in the hallways with hand sanitizer and TSP basins. Hands must be cleaned as soon as leaving any room.
They communicated with families of all those staying in the facility to get those residents who could be transferred to home care transferred immediately (part of the emergency action plan to make room in the local hospital.) They have two dedicated social workers with the county to assist in transportation and assistance to those being cared for at home.
Long term care facilities in town follow a very similar procedure and are working hand in hand with acute care to transfer red masks to acute care, and acute care transferring those who can’t be placed elsewhere to the long term care.
Both facilities have washers and dryers running pretty constantly throughout the day and night.
Also a religious cleaning regime.
Small tablets in gallon food bags are being used for video visits from friends and family; I do not know what program they are using for that, but they have paired tablets which friends and family pick up from a meeting tent outside.
The good news is the actions are working; influenza cases have dropped to near zero, one suspected case of COVID-19 (still waiting on test results) where the person later died after being transferred back to the hospital.
Amazon can suck it, the graceless publicity-hounding hater of mankind. I hope they die, slowly, in great pain.
This will be the government doing its best to create black markets.
Standing ovation for your post #6 not only for content but spirit and intent as well. Well done. That’s what FR is all about.
Good for you and your common sense approach to providing for family needs and prepping.
Your not giving it away now may go against the grain of a few FReepers here, but worse yet spouting off that you have it may get it taken away.
I have 10 N95 masks and 4 plain dust masks. There are exactly 11 ppl in my family, including grandkids. So I have 3 “extra”. If ppl thinking that’s hoarding, they can STFU.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.