Trump Snipes at Nurse Who Told Him PPE Has Been ‘Sporadic’: Maybe for You, But Not for ‘A Lot’ of Others

 

President Donald Trump shot back at a nurse who claimed supplies of masks and other forms of PPE had been “sporadic” throughout the country amid the coronavirus, insisting “sporadic for you, but not for a lot of other people.”

The exchange occurred in the Oval Office during an event meant to recognize National Nurses Day, yet Trump could not help but contradict the medical health expert, claiming the PPE supplies had been “tremendous.”

A reporter first asked a nurse from New York about his experience amid the pandemic and specifically wondered if he had enough supplies in his hospital. He acknowledged that they had sufficient PPE supplies, but revealed that they experienced a lack of doctors and other medical experts.

“There’s always a lag time between what happens in real time versus when you guys get it and run it, so the PPE, the ventilator situation, yes it got to the point where it was getting bad, but manufacturing ramped up and I think those are two things that we knew we would take care of as a country,” the nurse explained. “We had the PPE, we had the ventilators and the time, we just didn’t have enough people.”

Another reporter then followed up with the other nurses in the room, asking if they agreed and if they had sufficient supplies. Most nurses did, yet one explained that resources were dependent on location.

“I think it’s sporadic,” she noted. “I talked to my colleagues around the country, certainly, there are pockets of areas where PPE is not ideal but this is an unprecedented time and the infection control measures that we learned back when we went to school, one gallon, one mask for one patient a day, or per time, this is a different time.”

The nurse, who practices at a health center in New Orleans — a city that has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus, said that she had been resuing her N-95 for weeks, adding that medical experts in her community have been doing their best to keep everyone safe.

“So PPE has been sporadic but it’s been manageable. We do what we have to do,” she said. “We are nurses and we learn to adapt and do whatever the best thing we can do for our patients to get the job done and the care provided and that’s what we are going to continue to do as Covid-19 continues.”

Trump then interrupted her, insisting, “Sporadic for you, but not for a lot of other people … because I’ve heard the opposite. I’ve heard that they are loaded up with gowns now.”

He then took a shot at the Obama administration for failing to restock medical equipment before leaving office, later asking the room if they also saw shortages in PPE. The nurses claimed they were satisfied with the supplies they had.

Watch above, via Fox News.

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