Sign the petition here.
As a constituent and registered nurse (RN), I urge you to cosponsor the Medical Supply Chain Emergency Act (S. 3568/H.R. 6390). This legislation would immediately mobilize the federal government to help ramp up manufacturing of medical supplies and create a coordinated procurement and distribution process to states and health care facilities. While the Defense Production Act (DPA) has been invoked, it has not been used to its full authority, risking the health and lives of frontline health care providers, patients, and the general public.
RNs and other frontline health care providers are facing two huge issues.
1. A critical shortage of ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE) remains.
2. Governors and local officials across the country are competing with each other to purchase desperately needed PPE, medical supplies, and life-saving equipment. A coordinated effort, informed by science and an accurate accounting of resources, is absolutely vital at this moment.
Health care providers – including RNs across all health care settings – are facing severe shortages of PPE, if they have any at all. We need masks and N95 respirators now. We need your support to help those health care professionals risking their lives to help others.The Medical Supply Chain Emergency Act of 2020 would:
• Direct the Administration to activate the DPA to identify private sector capacity to produce no less than 500 million N95 respirators, 200,000 medical ventilators, 20 million face shields, 500 million pairs of gloves, and 20 million surgical gowns, in addition to other medical equipment deemed necessary;
• Direct that the President, or his designee, shall coordinate and direct allocation of this equipment, based on requests and need of each governor, as determined based on the number of cases of COVID-19 and the proportion of high-risk population in the state;
• Determine a fair and reasonable price for the PPE purchased under this bill; and
• Return unused equipment purchased with the Defense Production Act Fund to the stockpile.In order to ensure that RNs and other frontline health care providers remain healthy and able to continue providing vital patient care, the Administration and Congress must exhaust every option available to increase PPE and ventilator production and prioritize distribution to RNs and other frontline providers. RNs and everyone else in the country are counting on you!