Our frontline heroes deserve better 

By: Congresswoman Lori Trahan and Dr. David A. Rosman 

The United States was caught off-guard by the coronavirus. Our nation’s disjointed pandemic response protocols put health care workers at risk and, as a result, failed patients by jeopardizing their health.

Since the onset of the pandemic, our nation’s frontline health care workers have selflessly and fearlessly worked around the clock, risking their own physical and mental health to provide care to their patients.

The Trump Administration’s disorganization and incompetence hindered our nation’s ability to get personal protective equipment to these heroes on the front lines. States were forced to bid against each other over foreign shipments of supplies, and some hospitals took extreme measures to obtain critical equipment. One Massachusetts hospital system even executed an elaborate plan to transport their shipment with two trucks using separate routes to minimize the chances it would be seized.

Hospitals that were able to procure medical supplies had to ration them – physicians and nurses in many cases had at their disposal just one mask for an entire shift or longer. Some health care workers resorted to using trash bags or rain ponchos to cover their torsos. Others relied on donations from smaller physician practices and their communities.

It never should have gotten to this point. Thousands of health care workers have contracted COVID-19 nationwide and tragically, hundreds have died.

They deserve better, but without intervention, they can only expect more of the same.

We are still nowhere near the production levels necessary to keep our doctors and nurses safe during a second surge of COVID-19 that could overwhelm health care systems. According to Administration officials, we are still unable to meet estimated N-95 mask needs. And it remains unclear when every person will have reliable access to regular coronavirus testing, which experts agree is an absolute necessity in the absence of a vaccine.

Now, we’re seeing shortages again as states confront their poor decisions to reopen early or without proper guidelines. Physicians remain dangerously vulnerable due to a lack of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies as surges continue in hospitals across the south.

The risks to our health care system outside of pandemic response continue to grow worse as well. Smaller physician practices and those with fewer resources – many of whom donated their medical supplies to hospitals at the start of the crisis – face significant challenges in accessing the equipment required to reopen. Patients who postponed care for non-COVID symptoms during the height of the pandemic will soon need access to these smaller, community-based practices to receive the treatment they delayed.

It’s for these reasons that Congress must pass the Pandemic Production Act without delay. This legislation establishes a national medical industrial base – similar to what we already have for military manufacturing to protect our national security – to respond to public health crises, including the resurgence of COVID-19 still ravaging many parts of our country.

Like the federal investments made in defense manufacturing for everything from aircraft carriers to uniforms, the Pandemic Production Act will provide American manufacturers with critical federal funding to bolster our dangerously thin supply of personal protective equipment and maintain domestic production of medical equipment, test kits, treatments, and vaccines.

This new, federally backed manufacturing system will get people back to work in quality jobs with good wages in one of the most economically beneficial sectors of the economy. In fact, manufacturing has the highest economic multiplier of any major sector, and the average worker earns more than $87,000 annually, including pay and benefits. This is the kind of pay working families need to get back on their feet.

At the same time, this legislation will put an end to the “Hunger Games” stand-off between states over foreign supply shipments. Governors will no longer have to worry about a shipment of desperately needed equipment being seized in port, and health care workers will not be burdened by the fear that the personal protective equipment they rely upon to shield them from a potentially deadly exposure to the coronavirus won’t meet the highest standards.

Passing the Pandemic Production Act now – before another catastrophic spike in coronavirus cases – is imperative to preventing the additional loss of life as we continue to combat this public health crisis.

Congresswoman Lori Trahan and Massachusetts Medical Society President Dr. David A. Rosman