The federal government is no longer sending nursing homes disposable isolation gowns described in New Hampshire as useless garbage bags and instead is providing a different style, according to a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The New Hampshire Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, said this week that the bulk of the items sent by FEMA to protect workers against the coronavirus were unusable, including child-sized gloves, surgical masks with ear loops that broke when stretched and isolation gowns with no arm openings.
Brendan Williams, the president of the Health Care Association, said most of the equipment from FEMA that arrived in Granite State nursing homes had a multitude of problems and most of it has gone unused.
He demonstrated the problems with the isolation gowns sent from FEMA, which arrived with no armholes. Even on him, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound man, the blue plastic gown was huge.
“It’s not an isolation gown; it’s a garbage bag,” he said. “It’s basically representative that they’re treating health care workers like garbage.”
A FEMA spokesperson said Thursday that the agency coordinated two shipments to nearly 15,400 nursing homes nationwide, with the first round completed June 10 and the second round beginning June 18. Based on feedback from the first round, face shields were added to the second shipments, and the isolation gowns were replaced “with a more familiar disposable gown style” that also meet industry standards.
Gov. Chris Sununu said the state is replacing any of the defective items with items from its stockpile and is asking FEMA to do the same. He said he would prefer that FEMA send such items to the state for distribution rather than to individual facilities.
“I can’t answer why FEMA’s doing it this way. It’s very frustrating,” he said.