Coronavirus NSW: Doctors forced to import their own masks amid chronic
Personal protective equipment is being hurriedly imported to meet demand, but doctors have decided to import their own masks amid a shortage some claim is caused by overzealous rationing.
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Doctors have begun importing their own face masks amid a shortage of personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Bi Mian, an emergency department locum, said hospital administrators were rationing PPE, forcing doctors and nurses to work without them.
Dr Mian is now among those importing their own face masks.
“Some places have said we don’t have enough and you should not be wearing them unless treating COVID patients directly, but there is the risk of community spread, so anyone going into hospital is a potential risk.”
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On Thursday it was revealed six staff at Gosford Hospital acquired COVID-19, with two patients and four of their family and friends also testing positive.
The Australian Medical Association of NSW president Dr Kean Seng Lim said there were 137 health care workers with COVID-19.
Despite federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announcing last week the importation of 11 million masks, Dr Mian said many health care workers found administrators were rationing supplies.
Current Australian guidelines stipulate that healthcare workers must use a new mask with each new patient in aerosol producing procedures.
“The issue is they have locked them away, or the administrators are saying you can’t wear a mask in these circumstances so some have sourced their own and been told off for wearing them,” Dr Mian said.
“Others say they are allowed to have three masks for your shift, that is all you get and that is ridiculous.”
Dr Mian said many health care workers would prefer to wear masks at all times but that was not currently recommended by NSW clinical guidelines.
“Doctors in general believe that when we are in hospital and have face-to-face patient contact we should be wearing a mask,” he said.
“We don’t want to catch it and if we catch it we don’t want to be spreading it while asymptomatic.
“It is very difficult to do social distancing in a hospital when you have to examine patients and talk to them, you are coming in contact with all sort of colleagues who are all treating patients face-to-face.”
A recent study, published in the British Medical Journal, suggested that 78 per cent of people with COVID-19 have no symptoms.
“There is clear evidence that when you are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic you are potentially already infectious,” he said.
“You have to assume there is asymptomatic transmission going on.
“We still don’t know how much is in the national stockpile, they are trickling to the GPs, two boxes, 100 masks to a GP practice every few weeks — that is not adequate.
“They also say it is difficult to source, so what I have done is I have become a TGA sponsor myself to prove it is not difficult and I have managed to register some products and import them, it is not difficult to do.”
Dr Tony Sara from the Australian Salaried Medical Officer's Federation NSW (ASMOF) said there was anxiety among health care workers about the lack of supply, especially with P2 masks, which filter fine particles from the air.
“There is a lot of anxiety, people are getting very scared, because 14 per cent of the deaths in Italy were health care workers and large numbers of doctors and nurses in Italy have died,” he said.
“I don’t believe there is enough. There is a shortage and the government is doing everything they possibly can to address that, they have assisted factories to make masks, the army is assisting so it is a race … when we must have the P2 masks we will get them.
“I hope to God we do.”