FEMA competes with states, cities and hospitals for scarce protective gear. But experts say federal authorities could have avoided this chaos.
José Camacho ordered 20,000 N95 masks in late March, but before he could pay for them, the Federal Emergency Management Agency bought the vendor’s entire supply in under an hour.
It’s the chaotic reality thousands of nonprofit health providers, hospital administrators, and even local and state government officials now experience due to a lack of coordination at the federal level. In response to accusations by some states that FEMA was “commandeering” orders of PPE, the agency said it has no authority to do so. There are, however, mandates that give FEMA and other federal agencies priority over other purchasers.
“For government folks, a lot of them, this is very much uncharted territory,” Siney said. They’re “used to having a blank checkbook and getting what they want. Now they are just in a very awkward environment.” “It’s utter chaos that we introduced on top of this pandemic,” he said. The U.S. tends to coordinate well in the aftermath of natural disasters and during wars, he said, setting up command centers and bringing together multiple government agencies.
The agency employs about 26,000 civilian and military personnel around the globe managing purchases for about 5 million items, including medical equipment and protective gear. Part of its mission is supporting disaster relief and working with FEMA. "It is a challenge that the federal government says, 'States, you need to go and find your supply chain,' and then the federal government ends up buying from that supply chain,” Beshear told the Louisville Courier Journal, which is part of the USA TODAY Network.
“In the three days he and his team spent to chase every single lead, 98% of those leads were bogus and fraudulent,” Vyas said.
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