March 19, 2020

Duckworth Calls on DOD & HHS to Immediately Begin Training Civilian Healthcare Workers to Use DOD Ventilators

 

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, is calling on U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work together to ensure civilian healthcare workers are well-trained to use the up to 5 million respirator masks and other personal protective equipment including 2,000 deployable ventilators that DOD made available to HHS this week in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Duckworth wrote to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and HHS Secretary Alex Azar urging their departments to notify healthcare providers and first responders who will use the DOD-issued equipment of differences between military and civilian equipment, provide those workers with additional training and take other measures to ensure effective and efficient implementation of the DOD-issued equipment, especially ventilators.

“I commend the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for making available up to 5 million respirator masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) from DOD’s strategic reserves to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)” wrote Senator Duckworth, who served in the Reserve Forces for 23 years, including working at the Pentagon’s Defense Support of Civil Authorities to help train servicemembers on responding to global pandemics. “Such overdue DOD-HHS interagency coordination and resource-sharing is necessary to address the growing COVID-19 pandemic that threatens to overload and crash our Nation’s healthcare system. However, as each of you are aware, providing DOD issued-medical supplies and equipment will not be effective unless the provision of DOD inventory is accompanied by a comprehensive and widely-available training initiative for civilian on how to operate such equipment.”

Full text of the Senator’s letter to Secretaries Esper and Azar follows:

March 18, 2020

VIA ELECTRONIC DELIVERY

The Honorable Alex Azar

Secretary of Health and Human Services

Department of Health and Human Services

The Honorable Mark Esper

Secretary of Defense

Department of Defense

Dear Secretary Esper and Secretary Azar:

I commend the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for making available up to 5 million respirator masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) from DOD’s strategic reserves to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I also support DOD providing HHS with approximately 2,000 deployable ventilators and opening up 16 DOD certified testing labs to non-DOD personnel.

Such overdue DOD-HHS interagency coordination and resource-sharing is necessary to address the growing COVID-19 pandemic that threatens to overload and crash our Nation’s healthcare system. However, as each of you are aware, providing DOD issued-medical supplies and equipment will not be effective unless the provision of DOD inventory is accompanied by a comprehensive and widely-available training initiative for civilian on how to operate such equipment.

As DOD noted yesterday, DOD deployable ventilators and other DOD-issued equipment may be manufactured to meet DOD-specific requirements and designed to handle battlefield conditions. Other DOD medical equipment may simply differ from civilian commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equivalent equipment because DOD opted to use Department-specific requirements when conducting the procurement.

DOD and HHS must immediately partner to notify healthcare providers and first responders of operating and design differences for DOD deployable ventilators and other equipment designed to meet DOD-unique requirements. More importantly, DOD and HHS must act with urgency to provide training on how to properly use DOD-issued devices, such as respirators.

Accordingly, I request that DOD and HHS identify a senior leader in charge of identifying differences in DOD-issued equipment being distributed to HHS. This official must be tasked with

implementing the development and distribution of educational materials and training modules to all recipients and users of this equipment. Thank you in advance for your consideration of my urgent request. 

Sincerely,

Tammy Duckworth

United States Senator