At the dawn of the Coronavirus pandemic, the French government adopted a decision unique to the European Union – strict control over the distribution of personal protective equipment. However, by allocating resources to medical professionals, Paris left hundreds of nursing homes with nothing.
This is reported by “Reuters”
As it turned out, almost two weeks old people’s homes were forced to work with the scarce stock of medical masks that they had. In particular, the state nursing home of Emil Gerard on the outskirts of Paris expected to purchase 1.7 thousand masks in late February and early March. The order was not expected there – the suppliers reported that the medical products had been seized by the government. As a result, seven people in the nursing home died of coronavirus and at least seven employees were infected.
“The requisition decree violated the supply of tens of thousands of masks to the nursing home, which has a total population of about 1 million”, – the media reported, citing four suppliers of medical supplies.
It is noteworthy that the authorities have not physically seized the protection from manufacturers or suppliers. However, in order not to violate the decree, the companies had to stop selling these products. Most of them did not resume deliveries until the end of March.
“The lack of protective equipment in the first weeks of March contributed to the spread of the virus in nursing homes,” commented the head of the National Federation of Associations of Directors of Institutions and Services for the elderly, Jean-Pierre Risoe.