An inside look at one hospital’s PPE arsenal, and the fight to get more

Behind a locked door labeled “Rehabilitation Services” at University Medical Center lies the armory in the public hospital’s fight against the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Inside, hundreds of boxes are stacked high on wooden pallets and kept secure by a chain-link fence that nearly touches the room’s ceiling.

The Las Vegas hospital’s entire inventory of personal protective equipment — hundreds of thousands of gloves, gowns, masks and other items known as “PPE” — is kept secure here. Access to the room is limited, and employees armed with clipboards meticulously count every item that enters and exits.

In the age of coronavirus, this is the new normal for UMC.

“Everything is about preparation,” said Jacqueline Saites, the hospital’s director of contracts management. “You never know if it’s going to be enough because we don’t know when this will be over.”

Before the pandemic, boxes of protective equipment were placed throughout the hospital, accessible on demand.

But the highly contagious coronavirus has skyrocketed global demand — leaving health care facilities across the nation scrambling to replenish their rapidly depleting inventories.

The pandemic’s worldwide spread has complicated matters further.

Chinese factories that produce much of the world’s protective medical gear were temporarily closed during the virus’s spread there. Malaysia, a major supplier of medical gloves, recently saw its production drop steeply due to factory closures.

To stretch supplies, UMC has asked some employees to wear single-use masks for entire shifts, unless they become dirty or damaged. It’s an extraordinary practice that’s been approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and adopted by hospitals across the nation, oftentimes to the anger of nurses and other employees.

“We’re doing everything we can to avoid any kind of waste,” said Dr. Shadaba Asad, the hospital’s medical director of infectious disease. “This is pretty much what all hospitals are doing in the country right now.”

But even with such measures in place, Saites said keeping UMC well-stocked is a challenge.

Every person inside the hospital is required to wear a protective face mask at all times. Employees can use thousands of gowns and gloves in a single day.

She and a small team of hospital employees are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week to find and purchase additional protective equipment.

UMC’s need for protective equipment has remained unquenchable even as Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has doled out more than 1.9 million pieces of protective equipment from the state’s stockpile and federal supplies in recent weeks.

“There is absolutely no way any facility can rely just on state or federal (supplies),” Saites said.

Increased demand has also driven up prices. A mask that typically sells for less than $1 is going for anywhere from $5 to $7 today, Saites said.

Last year, UMC spent about $1.4 million on protective equipment. Since late February of this year, the hospital has spent more than $25 million on protective gear and other equipment to fight the coronavirus outbreak, including ventilators and laboratory equipment.

“We’re just bombarded every day with people saying they have supplies for us,” Saites said. “And then everybody is trying to charge an outrageous price.”

Her team has turned to unconventional sources like Amazon and Home Depot to find supplies, sometimes pooling the hospital’s money with competitors’ to leverage their combined buying power.

For every purchase the team secures, many more have fallen through. Opportunities change by the hour.

“Things are moving so quickly it’s unbelievable,” Saites said. “If you miss the boat and you take too long to place your order, then it’s gone. And you have to move on to the next one and do it again.”

As of Friday, UMC estimated it had about a two-month supply of masks, gloves and hand sanitizer. Meanwhile, goggles and surface disinfectant had both fallen to about a two-week supply.

And those numbers are constantly in flux, Saites said. A new purchase or donation could temporarily spike inventory, while a busy day could dramatically increase consumption of PPE.

UMC moved its PPE into a centralized location to keep better tabs on it. Inventory usage is tracked by hand to ensure numbers are kept current.

Keeping the hospital stocked with protective gear is vital to treating patients. A large outbreak among Southern Nevada’s hospital workers could cripple the region’s ability to fight the coronavirus, said Dr. Brian Labus, an assistant professor in epidemiology at UNLV

“It would basically decimate our health care system so we couldn’t provide care to the general population,” he said.

So while the process is both exhausting and frustrating, Saites said her team is committed to getting every piece of equipment the hospital needs. She’s begun calling the inventory room her second home.

“I think that’s why we don’t stop,” she said. “We know that after a couple of hours, it could make the difference to somebody being OK.”

Want to donate supplies to UMC or another local hospital? Find out how to donate.

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @DavidsonLVRJ on Twitter.