Medical professionals who’ve had a hard time getting personal protective equipment are getting some help from the Indiana State Department of Health. State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box says 128 hospitals and 90 health departments will get a shipment of supplies this week.
“Our local health departments are receiving another 1.3 million pieces of personal protective equipment for distribution to medical professionals, including our dental offices, primary care physicians, home health workers, dialysis centers, and health clinics, EMS, and other public safety personnel,” Box said during state officials’ COVID-19 briefing Wednesday.
Box added that a potential COVID-19 treatment will soon be more widely available in Indiana, thanks to some help from the federal government. “Indiana has also received two shipments of remdesivir, which is an anti-viral medication to treat severely ill COVID patients,” she said. “This first shipment went directly from FEMA to a hospital in Northern Indiana that was considered to be a hotspot, and we’ve been working with that hospital system and their CMO to ensure that we are able to share this resource across the northern part of the state and the hospitals there that are experiencing the greatest need.”
Box said the medication has been shown to shorten the length of hospital stays in certain cases. The state expects to get weekly allocations from the federal government going forward.
