With increased demand for PPE in human healthcare and potential requests to turn over PPE and/or medical supplies to government, will human or veterinary hospitals be able to continue operations?
There is an immediate dearth of PPE in human hospitals, and questions linger about whether we will see the same in veterinary hospitals. Hospital staff around the world are being asked to make increasingly difficult choices: do they go to work without appropriate PPE, knowing they themselves could be infected, or do they stop providing patient care?
This conundrum has rapidly spread across the medical establishment as critical resources have dwindled, expanding to include the veterinary medical field. We are now faced with considerations surrounding continued provision of reduced quality of care and/or putting providers and staff in danger when seeing patients. Questions also remain about who is accepting that risk—providers, staff, patients/owners, or all involved parties.
Standards of practice will have to change, even if transiently. We need to maximize use of PPE, medications, and disinfectants in the highest risk situations while using whatever may be available in less risky situations. After the COVID-19 crisis passes, medical providers from all fields must ensure we can never again be left to fend for ourselves and forced to make impossible choices.