Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas said issues with distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) from the provincial stockpile is disproportionately impacting smaller operators, particularly those in Northern Ontario.
This week Gélinas, the NDP health critic, said she has been hearing from frontline health care and other essential workers that accessing ample PPE is still an issue. In question period on Tuesday, she highlighted accounts by health care workers of consistent shortfalls of critical PPE like masks and gowns — especially N95 masks.
“In my constituency of Nickel Belt, I have been contacted by a chiropodist, occupational therapist, physiotherapists, nurses, family physicians and PSWs; all of them cannot access the PPE they need to be properly protected to do their jobs,” Gélinas said. “Workers in long-term care homes from across Ontario are still struggling to access PPE that are either kept under lock and key, or not available at all."
The MPP told Sudbury.com the issue is not so much with supply, saying the provincial COVID-19 command table is “working really, really hard” to source PPE for frontline health care workers, but with distribution, particularly to small operators, who aren’t sure how to find a source of personal protective equipment.
“Small players, the self-employed and home care workers — they don’t know where to go. Their usual supply chain is tapped,” Gélinas said, saying the smaller operators don’t know how to access the provincial stockpile.
Fortunately, she said, there appears to be a solution: Allow smaller Northern Ontario hospitals to buy PPE directly from the provincial stockpile, and then allow smaller operators to purchase PPE from those hospitals. Workers or employers would have to have exhausted their usual channels to access PPE before reaching out to their local hospital.
Gélinas said the ministry understands the issue, and agrees the hospital solution is a good workaround. Details are being ironed out now, she said.
