“I had 5 million masks incoming that disappeared,” said Dr. Richard Stone, the executive in charge of managing the nation’s largest health care system with 1,255that serve more than 9 million veterans. He told the Post that FEMA instructed vendors with protective equipment ordered by the Veterans Administration to send the shipments instead to the stockpile.
“The supply system was responding to FEMA,” Stone, a former Army deputy surgeon general, told the Post. “I couldn’t tell you when my next delivery was coming in.” Veterans health care facilities were going through about 200,000 masks a day, according to Stone. Stone acknowledged the problem after Veterans Administration officials had denied their facilities were grappling with shortages even amid mounting complaints from health care professionals.
After an appeal from Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie to FEMA, the agency provided the VA with 500,000 masks this week, FEMA officials said in a statement to the Post. FEMA officials did not address the issue of diverting supplies ordered for veterans to the national stockpile. The short-changing of hospitals caring for the nation’s veterans is similar to FEMA issues at other facilities and states across the nation. Hospital officials and governors have complained that FEMA is snatching equipment ordered by communities — rather than providing much-needed supplies, which officials had been counting on the agency to do.
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Source: Reuters - 🏆 2. / 97 Read more »