Five million face masks ordered by the Veterans Health Administration to protect staff at the department’s hospitals and clinics were taken by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency for the
Strategic National Stockpile, a top official told The Washington Post.
“I had 5 million masks incoming that disappeared,” said Dr. Richard Stone, the executive in charge of managing the nation’s largest health care system with 1,255
facilities that serve more than 9 million veterans. He told the Post that FEMA instructed vendors with protective equipment ordered by the Veterans Administration to send the shipments instead to the stockpile.
“The supply system was responding to FEMA,” Stone, a former Army deputy surgeon general, told the Post. “I couldn’t tell you when my next delivery was coming in.” Veterans health care facilities were going through about 200,000 masks a day, according to Stone.
Stone acknowledged the problem after Veterans Administration officials had denied their facilities were grappling with shortages even amid mounting complaints from health care professionals.
After an appeal from Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie to FEMA, the agency provided the VA with 500,000 masks this week, FEMA officials said in a statement to the Post. FEMA officials did not address the issue of diverting supplies ordered for veterans to the national stockpile.
