Do Central Coast hospitals have enough protective equipment to fight coronavirus?
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical facilities across the country have faced challenges stocking enough personal protection equipment such as masks, gloves, gowns and face shields.
Santa Barbara County hospitals and major medical providers are no exception, but all tell Noozhawk they are adequately supplied with PPE for the time being.
They also say that should a surge in cases occur, they feel confident that they can obtain the items needed to keep patients and medical personnel safe.
“We expect our hospitals are well-positioned to meet supply needs well into the summer, but we continue to prepare in case usage and needs change,” said Maria Zate, a spokeswoman for Cottage Health, which operates hospitals in Santa Barbara, Goleta and Santa Ynez and clinics in San Luis Obispo County.
“Our supply chain team has worked diligently to secure the protective equipment needed to help keep patients and employees safe, and community members have been generous in helping us ensure we have the resources needed in areas that presented supply challenges.”
Early on, Zate said, Cottage was facing a potential shortage of specialized face shields, but was able to address that concern through a collaboration with engineers from UC Santa Barbara and local companies.
All local hospitals have held donation drives for medical-grade personal protective equipment, and say they are happy to accept more, although the current supplies are adequate.
Lompoc Valley Medical Center reports it is “pretty well situated” for N95 masks, face shields and gloves.
“Our inventory of isolation gowns and procedure masks is low, and we are in the process of getting more,” said Steve Popkin, the medical center’s CEO.
Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria currently has “sufficient and appropriate equipment to protect our caregivers and patients,” according to Dr. Scott Robertson, chief medical officer for Dignity Health’s Central Coast Division.
A surge in COVID-19 patients “could put additional strain on our usage rate and supply chain,” Robertson said, adding that hospital officials are confident they could meet any increased local demand.
Similarly, all three organizations report they have enough ventilators to address current and future needs.
Ventilators are crucial pieces of equipment to treat the most seriously ill COVID-19 patients, typically those in intensive care units.
Cottage Health has 68 ventilators, Zate said, including 55 for adult-pediatric patients and 13 for neonatal patients.
“If needs increase, we’ve also looked ahead to identify opportunity to modify the anesthesia machines typically used in operating rooms, to adapt them for potential COVID-19 care,” Zate said. “We have 39 of those types of ventilators, and though we would not typically use them outside the ORs, they could be modified and deployed for COVID-19 care if needed.”
Zate noted that the typical COVID-19 patient in critical care has remained on a ventilator for nearly 10 days.
Lompoc Valley Medical Center has 15 ventilators plus two anesthesia machines, Popkin said.
“So far, we have not had more than three patients on a ventilator at one time,” he added, “so we feel we have an adequate supply…to serve our current and future needs.”
Robertson said that Marian Regional Medical Center has “an adequate supply of ventilators and the required medications to manage patients in a critical care environment.”
When doctors place someone on a ventilator, they use various sedatives, painkillers and paralytics so that the patient can tolerate the procedure.
There has been concern raised nationally about a shortage of such drugs, but none of the local medical facilities has reported a problem in that regard.
Sansum Clinic, which operates a network of primary care and specialty care clinics on the South Coast, also said it has plenty of PPE for the foreseeable future.
However, it’s challenging to plan ahead while not knowing what the future demand will be, said Dr. Kurt Ransohoff, CEO and chief medical officer of Sansum Clinic.
“We’ve been really good about our PPE, we’re re-sterilizing masks according to CDC guidelines to make sure we can get all the life we can out of masks,” Ransohoff said, adding that it is done with equipment used for sterilizing surgical instruments.
