Two thousand surgical masks. A pledge to give 550 gallons of hand sanitizer weekly. More than 70,000 gloves.
Donations like these to health care providers help workers on the front lines battling the coronavirus, hospital officials said.
But supplies of personal protective equipment remain limited in Arkansas at a time when more will be needed, said Dr. Steppe Mette, CEO of UAMS Medical Center and senior vice chancellor for UAMS Health.
"We all have adequate [protective] supplies for the next five days or so," Mette said, discussing how leaders with a dozen hospitals or health care systems broke down their supply totals in a group call Thursday.
The outbreak is expected to increase the numbers of hospital patients, so "the pressure on those supplies will be pretty dramatic," Mette said. With a single critically ill covid-19 patient causing a hospital to daily go through some 500 sets of personal protective equipment, "almost none of the hospitals in Arkansas can sustain that without a bigger inventory at hand," Mette said.
Gowns, gloves, N95 respirators, face masks and eye protection all are considered personal protective equipment.
Industry, manufacturing and academia have stepped up to give supplies to hospitals in the state, as have other donors.
Mette said UAMS is not soliciting gifts of physical supplies, however, instead working with a group organized by Little Rock's city leaders. The city effort has established an emergency relief fund that will help defray costs for protective equipment, Mette said. Gear acquired will benefit health care providers in Central Arkansas, he said.
Arkansas -- unlike states including Oklahoma and Tennessee -- does not have a statewide effort to solicit donations of equipment.
Ron Darbeau, a dean at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, last month led a campus effort that on March 23 provided to UAMS in Little Rock more than 70,000 gloves, about 1,500 masks, some 60 surgical gowns and another 50 isolation gowns, the university said.
An additional number of items were set aside for future donation to health care providers in the Fort Smith area, Darbeau said.
"We took a carefully inventory and kind of made a judgment, we would give about 60% of it to UAMS," Darbeau said.
The donation -- from several UAFS departments and supported by Chancellor Terisa Riley -- came from supplies that students would have used to finish out a typical spring semester, plus some stock likely for summer use, Darbeau said.
"It's a no brainer," Dabreau said of the effort. "This is a pandemic the likes we have not seen for generations, and the people that we depend upon to keep us safe, the ones on the front lines, are basically fighting a battle and they're not fully armed."
TY Garments USA, a manufacturer in Little Rock, donated 2,000 surgical masks, said Leslie Taylor, a UAMS spokeswoman.
"We put that to immediate use," Mette said.
L'Oreal USA, a beauty product company that operates a North Little Rock manufacturing facility, has pledged to provide 550 gallons of hand sanitizer weekly to Arkansas health care providers, said Curtis Broughton, UAMS assistant vice chancellor for supply chain.
"They were not in the hand sanitizer business," Broughton said, praising the company's response to the pandemic and efforts to ensure the quality of what they're making. He said the first shipment was expected today.
Other donors include the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, which last week donated about 100-200 masks, about 7,800 gloves and 12,000 test tubes, among other equipment, to UAMS and UAMS Northwest, UA spokesman John Post said.
Goodwill Industries of Arkansas, with the Arkansas Hospital Association and business services company Cintas, on Wednesday opened a campaign to collect gloves, masks and other safety equipment at more than 40 sites statewide, a spokeswoman said.
To decide which health care facilities will receive the donations, the Arkansas Hospital Association "is providing us guidance on the facilities in need," Goodwill spokeswoman Kerri Nettles said.
Metro on 04/03/2020