Gov. Wolf signs order allowing medical supplies to be redistributed to Pa. areas hit hardest by coronavirus

In light of the continued spread of the coronavirus across Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday signed an order that will allow the state’s emergency management agency to take protective equipment and supplies from one medical facility and give them to others with greater needs.

“I’m trying to make sure that we take this scarce set of resources that we have and make sure we’re deploying them in the areas that need them the most,” Wolf said during a virtual news conference.

The order requires private, public and quasi-public health care facilities to submit their current inventory of personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

Manufacturers, distributors and suppliers of those products must also submit their inventories to PEMA within five days.

Health care facilities are required to give written reports detailing what they need. PEMA officials will decide how often those reports must be submitted, according to a release from Wolf’s office.

The agency will “make arrangements with other commonwealth agencies to reimburse facilities for PPE and other supplies and equipment” and then arrange for the products they commandeered to go “where they are needed most.”

The governor indicated that despite the voluntary efforts by health care facilities and the state to gather more equipment from the private sector, “a critical shortage of PPE, pharmaceuticals and other medical resources remains.”

Wolf said the pandemic has not spread evenly across the state, and his order will allow more supplies to go to the areas that have been hit hardest. On the other hand, he said, it will also mean supplies can go to smaller, less-prepared facilities that might not have a solid supply.

“Combating a pandemic means we all have to work together,” he said. “That means we need to make the best use of our medical assets to ensure the places that need them the most have them.”