Health Center In Westchester Begs For Medical Supplies

Open Door Family Medical Center is desperately seeking personal protective equipment and medical supplies for patients and staff. The multi-site center not only needs masks, hand sanitizer, shields, gloves, isolation gowns and goggles, but also wipes, isopropyl alcohol, lab coats and thermometers.

As the new coronavirus outbreak intensifies in Westchester County and up the Hudson Valley, Open Door is no more than a day and a half from running out of vital supplies as hundreds of symptomatic patients come to the center for care, said Glenn Delau, director of purchasing. The health center, with locations in Ossining, Port Chester, Sleepy Hollow, Mount Kisco, Brewster, Mamaroneck and Saugerties, is most in need of basic droplet masks, hand sanitizers, and isolation gowns, he said.

In fact, the health center is asking the community to make masks for handing out to patients.

“We’re at the front line in trying to keep our health care workers and our patients healthy,” he said. “We can’t wait any longer for help.”

Delau said he and purchasing specialist Anthony Wilson have made calls and traveled throughout the region to identify possible sources for PPE. This has included driving to Rye and Peekskill to meet with local leaders to pick up donated cases of hand sanitizer.

“We set up a crisis supply strategy with the county when this all started, where every week we would put in a request for items needed,” said Delau. “Now, they don’t have the inventory or product is being diverted to hospitals.”

As a result, Open Door finds itself in desperate need of protective masks for patient care and shields for health care workers to protect them during testing should the patient cough, triggering an aerolized reaction.

Delau and Wilson are exploring creative ways to identify desperately-needed equipment, he said. For example, they thought they had a deal with a small Philadelphia-based manufacturer that was prepared to produce face shields for Open Door’s needs, but at the last minute the company pulled out because they found a large local hospital who needed supplies to keep their staff busy for some time. The team continually reaches out to medical and dental vendors for materials.

“In a clinic like ours, which is very high volume, it’s been very hard to acquire enough supplies to maintain inventory and keep clinicians and health care personnel safe, said Wilson. "The biggest challenge is that most of our vendors have us on allocation where they can’t offer us any more product because of their own limited inventory.”

Added Delau, “We need people and local medical companies, dental offices labs to look through their stockpiles to see if there is anything they don’t need right now.”

They are also asking individuals for help. "This may be someone who has a few boxes of unused masks that are sitting in a closet somewhere,” said Delau.

Lindsay Farrell, President and CEO of Open Door, sums the need up very succinctly. “We are a resilient organization, but without PPE, we cannot continue to operate,” she said.

To help Open Door, call 914-502-1391 or visit the website.

The Westchester County-based federally qualified medical center offers medical, dental, pediatric, women’s, podiatry and behavioral health care in Ossining, Port Chester, Sleepy Hollow, Mount Kisco, Brewster, and Mamaroneck, runs a dental practice in Saugerties, and runs eight school-based health services.

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