No more trash bags. New California law requires hospitals to stockpile COVID protection

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, California’s cupboards were bare.

The state’s hospitals were running short on masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment. Nurses picketed outside their hospitals, demanding more gear. At one East Bay hospital last spring, nurses donned garbage bags in lieu of protective gowns, a scene that was repeated at other hospitals around the country.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration threw hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem, signing no-bid contracts with suppliers around the world in an effort to catch up — contracts that occasionally brought the governor grief as the promised goods didn’t always show up promptly.

Now it’s up to the hospitals to ensure they have supplies on hand.

A state law taking effect Thursday requires hospitals to have at least a three-month supply of gowns, masks, respirators and other PPE on hand. AB 2537, sponsored by the California Nurses Association, says hospitals can be fined $25,000 for violations.

“This new law is an important step in holding hospitals accountable and protecting nurses and other health care workers,” said union president Cathy Kennedy in a prepared statement.

The law takes effect as the coronavirus pandemic shows signs of easing. Infection rates are easing in California, counties are being released into the less-restrictive shutdown tiers and more than 18 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered. The state, after fits and starts, has succeeded in procuring more protective equipment.

Nonetheless, the PPE issue continues to reverberate in California. Two weeks ago, Sacramento-based Sutter Health was fined $155,000 by state regulators for a host of workplace safety violations after the death last June of a Sutter nurse in Oakland. Among other things, the state said the hospital failed to make sure its nurses were wearing N95 masks.

Sutter said it disputes the findings and is appealing the fine. As far as stockpiling gear in accordance with the new law, “we are all set,” said Sutter spokeswoman Liz Madison in an email.

Other major hospitals said they also are confident they can meet the state’s mandate.

“Our plans are to fully comply with the law,” said UC Davis Health spokesman Edwin Garcia.

Yessenia Anderson, spokeswoman for Dignity Health, said, “We are confident that we have enough PPE for all of our staff and clinicians at this time, and enough inventory necessary to be in full compliance with the new law. We monitor our PPE levels daily and make adjustments accordingly.”

Thousands of infections from lack of protection

Last summer a study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center concluded that PPE shortages caused an estimated 20,000 coronavirus infections among healthcare workers in California.

At times the state’s efforts to increase supplies have led to major headaches. A $1 billion contract for N95 masks from China ran into problems after the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health initially refused to certify the masks for use in the United States. After some delay, the masks were certified and delivered.

A separate $456 million mask deal with a company called Blue Flame collapsed after it was disclosed that the company was being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department. The state was able to cancel the deal before it wired any money to the company.

There are some anecdotal signs that PPE shortages are easing, at least on a nationwide level. Get Us PPE, a national nonprofit that donates protective gear to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and other institutions, said requests for equipment dropped by 52% in February, the first decline since last fall.

But Nick Vyas, a supply-chain expert at USC’s Marshall School of Business, said considerable problems remain, especially among some of the most in-demand goods.

N95 masks are “hard to come-by commodities,” he said. Requiring hospitals to maintain a three-month inventory of PPE “is a huge mandate,” he added.

The problem is caused in part because of the U.S.’s continued reliance on deliveries from overseas, he said.

Vyas said a flood of imported goods — of all kinds, not just PPE — has created logjams at major ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach, causing delays in unloading much-needed medical gear.

“The goods are not moving from ports to people,” Vyas said. “Your supply could be sitting in the vessel for three to four more weeks.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2021 at 2:22 PM.