With more COVID-19 surges expected this fall, health administrators and communities are focused on avoiding the severe shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) that threatened the safety of our frontline workers and patients at the pandemic's outset.
The COVID-19 virus is unprecedented in that it is both highly contagious and more lethal than past outbreaks. We have seen that it can be easily transmitted in a health care setting from patient to staff and staff to patient.
As of July 2020, twelve Canadian health care workers had died from COVID-19. Canadian health care workers have made up about 20 per cent of total COVID-19 infections, a figure that speaks to the heroic work and disproportionate sacrifice they have made to keep us safe. Without adequate PPE the numbers would have been much higher.
As we open our schools and live with the “new normal” we must all be cognizant that COVID-19 is not going away for the foreseeable future. Securing PPE for the tens of thousands of frontline health care workers must remain a top priority.
COVID-19 has also shown the importance of maintaining strong secure supply chains. Nowhere was this more evident than in health care. Our health administrators had to scramble to supply their frontline staff with gowns, protective face coverings, bed linens, and other essential health care supplies required in hospitals, long-term care homes, and other health-related facilities.
Frontline COVID-19 health care staff must change their gear two or three times a shift. As the pandemic progressed, the demand for clean equipment was soon untenable. We saw pricing spikes, rationing and improvisation of homemade equipment. We also saw many inspirational stories about communities coming together like Ottawa's Shielding Our Heroes campaign which provided locally manufactured PPE.
It was a trying time for many. Over and above stress of their work, frontline health workers had to worry about essential work tools and safety they should have been able to take for granted.
Healthcare administrators and buyers have responded by trying to diversify their supply chain to reduce risks associated with longer delivery times. Looking at sustainable options allows Canada to continue working with our trading partners. We must also be careful about new entrants creating PPE that have not lived and breathed the medical space before and recognize that it is not a long-term solution.
There is also a growing recognition that reusable products must become a bigger portion of the supply mix. Disposable one-time gear has become all too familiar at hospitals and health care facilities. At the beginning of the pandemic, anticipating looming shortages, the Public Health Agency of Canada and USFDA advised facilities to shift to reusable gowns as part of a strategy to conserve PPE during the pandemic.
During COVID-19, after masks, isolation gowns have been the second most used item by health care professionals and is the product with the best range of reusable options and measurable outcomes. Gowns are readily available that can be reused up to 75 times and are sterilized with regularly available hospital laundry services.
An American Reusable Textile Association (ARTA) study shows that reusable options provide the same protection and comfort and help reduce medical waste and decrease costs as much as 25% to 50% in comparison to single-use gowns. In terms of the environmental life cycle, reusable gowns provide substantial benefits compared to disposable gowns, reducing:
- 28% in natural resource energy
- 30% in greenhouse gases
- 41% in water usage
- 93% in solid waste at health care facilities