Catholic Hospitals urge retailers to stop selling N95 masks
A patient suffering from COVID-19 is treated at a hospital PHOTO: CNS/Flavio Lo Scalzo, Reuters
Catholic Health Australia, which manages one in eight hospital beds in Australia, is calling on retailers to stop selling N95 hospital-grade masks to the public as limited numbers in Australia will be exhausted with disastrous consequences on the health system.
“These masks are on sale in Chemist Warehouse and Office Warehouse but hospitals across the country are scrambling to access these life-saving masks,” said James Kemp, Director of Health Policy at Catholic Health Australia (CHA).
We need to make every mask count
Like the embarrassing toilet paper hoarding frenzy witnessed earlier in the year at the onset of the pandemic – which exhausted supplies from shelves, wide-scale retail access to hospital-grade equipment will exhaust essential products from the health industry where they are needed in emergency and intensive care wards.
“We are calling on retailers and wholesalers to think twice about sourcing these masks to sell to the public. As we have seen, this pandemic can surge very quickly – we need to make every mask count.”
Image of a N95 hospital-grade facemask which are of limited supply in Australia and are desperately needed on the frontlines fighting COVID-19 – and not hoarded by members of the public PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons
A P2/N95 mask removes around 95% of all particles that are at least 0.3 microns in diameter – and are essential in the fight against COVID which has claimed the lives of thousands of hospital staff around the world.
“The guidelines for wearing a mask in public is that it does not need to be a medical-grade mask, and certainly not an N95. While we all want to protect ourselves and our loved ones, the best way we can do this is to mask-up in public but leave the N95 masks to our clinicians who need them.”
“COVID-19 cases are rising all over the country and we have to make sure our frontline staff is protected.”
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I think it is important that I do not become another burden to our medical system and also protect others from the spread . I will continue to protect myself and others with the best masks available .
These are not the same N95 masks that are being sold at Chemist warehouse. The ones sold at CW are the Softmed N95. Not the
A P2/N95 ones.Fyi
You can obtain them just as easily as the retail outlets. Put in rolling orders and stop whining about the public not wanting to catch the virus.
Why should the public give up what they can get, for people who work for organisations that can’t think. Like the Vic govt all educated with no common sense.
So the hospitals are complaining they can’t get equipment? Why instead of asking the public which are trying to protect themselves, make a deal with a business to buy these in bulk.
Most of these mask sold online to the public are fake anyway