US facing shortage of medicines-ventilators and protective gears

Doctors-nurses and other health staff facing greater risk

The richest country in the world and most dominant economic-military and political power in the world but it is facing the shortage of medicines-medical equipment-supplies and protective gears for health workers and doctors. The doctors-nurses and hospital staff is finding it difficult to cope with the rising number of patients.

The US has become the leading nation for having the most infected patients surpassing China and Italy. The number of coronavirus infected patients have already crossed 1, 00,000 (one hundred thousand) figure while 1600 dead. The public health experts are warning that the numbers might climb more quickly in next couple of weeks.

How strange it is that a country which export warplanes-tanks-missiles and other weapons of mass destruction and has the capacity to destroy any country with rain of missiles and bombs. But it hasn’t had enough masks-protective gears and other equipment to save its doctors- nurses and other health staff. 
A country which is ever ready to launch attack against any country and initiate a war. But it is not ready to cope with a pandemic. Despite its colossal wealth and resources - it is not been able to provide the basic material to its hospital staff to protect themselves. It is really a moment of shame for the American ruling elite. 

    

The doctors-nurses and health staff which are the fighting the coronavirus pandemic at front lines has pleaded the government to supply ventilators-medicines and protective gears. The doctors and hospital staff are facing shortage of protective gears and masks. They are demanding more medical supplies.  

The hospitals in different parts of America are in desperate need of ventilators. The ventilators are needed for the serious patients of COVID-19 who cannot breathe normally. The highly contagious novel coronavirus caused respiratory ailment and patients at certain stage cannot survive without ventilators.

The hospitals in New York City, New Orleans, Detroit and other cities which have become COVID-19 hot spots are experiencing the scarcities of drugs, medical supplies and trained staff while the number of confirmed US cases rose by about 18,000 on Friday, the highest jump in a single day, to more than 103,000.

The American news agency Reuters has quoted Dr. Arabia Mollette of Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn saying that “we are scared- we’re trying to fight for everyone else’s life, but we also fight for our lives as well, because we’re also at the highest risk of exposure.”

Reuters also quoted Dr. Alexander Salerno of Salerno Medical Associates, a general medical practice with offices in northern New Jersey, who described going through a “broker” to pay $17,000 for masks and other protective equipment that should have cost about $2,500, and picking them up at an abandoned warehouse.

The prices of Masks and other protective gears and equipment have gone up to 600% to 700%. The black market is taking advantage of the increased demand and spiked the prices many times. New York-area doctors say they have had to recycle some protective gear, or resort to the black market. Nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York said they were locking away or hiding N-95 respirator masks, surgical masks and other supplies that are prone to pilfering if left unattended. “Masks disappear- We hide it all in drawers in front of the nurses’ station, “said Nurse Diana Torres.

One doctor in Michigan, an emerging epicentre of the pandemic, said he was using one paper face mask for an entire shift due to a shortage and that hospitals in the Detroit area would soon run out of ventilators. Even as hospital patient numbers steadily climbed, shortages of key medical supplies abounded.

Dr. Rob has said that “We have hospital systems here in the Detroit area in Michigan who are getting to the end of their supply of ventilators and have to start telling families that they can’t save their loved ones because they don’t have enough equipment.”

Sophia Thomas, a nurse practitioner at DePaul Community Health Center in New Orleans, said the numbers of coronavirus patients “have been staggering.” “We are truly a hotbed of COVID-19 here in New Orleans,” she said, adding that her hospital was trying to cope in part by shifting some patients to “telehealth” services that allow them to be evaluated from home.