Three Vermont nurses unions are requesting that the state provide more personal protective equipment to health care workers.
Unions representing nurses at the University of Vermont Medical Center, Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital asked Gov. Phil Scott to increase state funding to buy protective gear, that he order businesses to turn over their supplies of PPE, and that all manufacturing facilities shift their operations to start making masks, gowns, and other protective materials.
The unions outlined their requests in a letter to Scott on Monday.
The nurses aren’t facing a shortage yet, but they could be soon, said Deb Snell, head of the union at the UVMMC. Staff in the intensive care unit where Snell works are allocated one mask a day, she said. They wear a face shield for up to five days, “until basically we can’t see out of them anymore.”
Snell had heard of other Vermont hospitals that didn’t have extra small N95 masks for nurses, or that had clinicians wash their own scrubs because they didn’t have enough to provide staff.
“The anxiety is increasing, because we know we haven’t seen our top number [of patients] yet,” she said. “Some hospitals may be OK, but others may not.”
At a press conference Monday, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Mike Schirling said that the state had ordered 2.7 million pieces of protective equipment. Scott said he was on the phone at 10 p.m. on Friday trying to secure another delivery of N95 masks from Connecticut.
Vermont’s progress in getting the necessary supplies “took the gallant efforts of many people … and the generosity of many,” he said. Still, the state is “continuing to do whatever we can to find those resources and make sure that we get them into our hands.”
— Katie Jickling
