Coronavirus: Hospitals at odds on safety of face masks

More than 600,000 coronavirus face masks have been recalled from SA hospitals because of concerns they do not adequately protect against COVID-19.

Health workers are at odds over which masks are effective in the fight against Covid-19.

More than 600,000 coronavirus face masks have been recalled from South Australia’s hospitals because of concerns they do not adequately protect against COVID-19 infection.

The urgent withdrawal of the masks follows the repeated denial by St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney that the same mask – a P2 8120 – has resulted in an ICU doctor and two nurses being ordered into quarantine following an “incident” with a COVID patient on Friday.

SA Health officials say the masks had been in use in the Royal Adelaide Hospital ICU only since April 11 — a day after one of the unit’s nurses tested positive for COVID-19.

Thirty-four RAH health workers who had contact with the nurse have also been quarantined.

SA Health said it had decided to recall all the masks and seek “clarification from the commonwealth on their suitability for treating COVID-19 patients”.

“Staff should be made aware that these respirators are not guaranteed fluid-resistant since they have not been tested for fluid strike-through,” it said.

NSW Health said the same masks used by St Vincent’s Hospital’s ICU staff did not meet the guidelines of the Clinical Excellence Commission for COVID-19 procedures.

St Vincent’s said this week the masks — issued to intensive care unit staff more than two weeks ago — were fit for purpose when used with a face shield. The hospital sought to blame the doctor and two ICU nurses now in quarantine, saying they had “mispositioned” their improvised face shields during a high-risk procedure with a critically ill COVID-19 patient in ICU.

One hospital worker said staff had been using a visored face mask as a face shield, as instructed, because the unit had run out of face shields. The worker said the alarm was raised the next day when the ICU nurse representative on the hospital’s COVID-19 committee, Gabrielle McLoughlin, sent an email to the committee, entitled “Incorrect PPE supplied to ICU”.

“It has come to my attention the masks supplied to ICU are not fit for aerosol generating pro­cedures (AGPS) … the P2 mask 8210 is rated only for dry airborne situations and not AGPS,” Ms McLoughlin wrote.

The masks were immediately removed from ICU.

St Vincent’s Hospital issued a statement on Thursday night, again defending the use of the P2 8120 masks by the three ICU staff now quarantined.