WASHINGTON - The nation's hospitals are facing severe shortages of tests, critical protective gear and staff needed to combat the coronavirus and protect their patients, a federal government watchdog reported Monday.
The report is the first by the federal government to assess how hospitals are responding to the crisis. Based on hundreds of interviews of administrators coast-to-coast between March 23-27, it largely confirmed anecdotal reports from news organizations and painted a far more dire picture than the one President Donald Trump describes at his daily news conferences.
The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services concluded that hospitals' problems hindered their doctors' ability to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Unable to obtain critical gear, hospitals were competing with each other in the market and relying on unproved suppliers who did not always deliver what was promised.
Administrators complained they were receiving inconsistent guidance from federal and state public health officials, and were wasting time educating the public about the threat of the virus, according to the report. "The misinformation that is out there, and the lack of serious understanding about what we could be facing, is extraordinary," one administrator said.
The virus was also hurting hospitals' financial well-being as they were forced to cut back on elective procedures to protect patients and preserve their meager stockpiles of protective equipment, the report said.
"Hospitals reported that their most significant challenges centered on testing and caring for patients with known or suspected COVID-19 and keeping staff safe," concluded the 34-page report, which canvassed administrators at 323 medical centers. "Hospitals also reported substantial challenges maintaining or expanding their facilities' capacity to treat patients."
The assessment was sharply at odds with the daily status reports from Trump, including over the weekend. He and Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the president's coronavirus task force, have asserted that private companies were successfully filling the void to provide masks, gloves and ventilators to hospitals.
This weekend, the president claimed that "many hospital administrators that we've been in touch with, even in the really hot spots - you know what they are - are communicating directly with us that their level of supplies are meeting essential needs." He added, "At the current time, they're really thrilled to be where they are."
Trump repeatedly has suggested that states and hospitals were actually to blame for not having enough ventilators, a critical tool in treating the sickest patients. He blamed some hospital workers for a shortage of masks, saying personnel were hoarding or stealing them. "Something's going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door?" he said on March 29. "And we have that happening in numerous places I don't think it's hoarding. I think maybe it's worse than hoarding."
Trump is not likely to react well to the report's findings. It was published just two days after Trump informed Congress he was firing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community. Atkinson last year disclosed to lawmakers a whistleblower's complaint about the president's dealings with Ukraine that started the ball rolling on Trump's impeachment.
The inspector general's office for the Department of Health and Human Services has been led by Christi Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general, since January. It has not had a Senate-confirmed inspector general since Daniel Levinson, who led the office for 15 years, stepped down in May.