Marie Curie response to Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s PPE plan
Comment published
Marie Curie response to Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s personal protective equipment (PPE) plan and promise to ensure daily deliveries of PPE to frontline workers.
Matthew Reed, Chief Executive of Marie Curie said:
“The ‘herculean effort’ that Health Secretary, Matt Hancock has described to ensure personal protective equipment gets to frontline workers, must bear fruit for charities too.
At Marie Curie we are falling between the gaps. Despite caring for dying and terminally ill patients at home and in our hospices, with and without Covid-19, and relieving pressure on the NHS by doing so, getting the PPE we need to do this is still in absolute chaos.
Our orders are cancelled, don’t turn up or don’t contain what we have requested. It is a daily battle to get the orders delivered to the right places and we don't know what or when they will arrive.
We are having to turn to third party suppliers who are charging 12000% more for items such as masks, at a time when our fundraising has been decimated.
Without PPE we have been left with no choice but to cancel visits to terminally ill patients, many of whom are on their own and vulnerable and expecting us. Our Nurses feel helpless and heartbroken. Our patients will end up in hospital or having potentially bad deaths – alone without support.
We implore the health secretary to ensure that charities like Marie Curie, that are also providing frontline care like the NHS, are not forgotten about.”