Sarah Courtney,Minister for Health
The health, safety and wellbeing of Tasmanians is the Government’s number one priority as we continue to prepare and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a Government, we are committed to protecting our staff and ensuring they have the equipment they need to care for Tasmanians.
With global demand for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at unprecedented levels, securing PPE has been a key priority for the Tasmanian Government.
Our health service moved quickly to establish a dedicated PPE procurement team to manage logistics and statewide supply.
This enabled the centralisation of decision making and allowed us to take fast action to secure supplies.
The Government has since been working hard to gradually build on our supplies, and we now have significantly bolstered levels of PPE.
As at this month, our stock levels of equipment includes;
- 21.4 million sets of gloves;
- 8.2 million surgical masks;
- 2 million gowns;
- 1.2 million sets of eye protection and goggles;
- 427,000 P2/N95 respirator masks, with more than 3.3 million on order;
- 168,000 face shields; and
- 66,000 litres of hand sanitiser.
The Government has secured a sustained supply of PPE, above and beyond normal supply chain and we continue to booster our holdings to ensure there is adequate supply of PPE Statewide.
We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging, and we thank our hardworking staff for their incredible efforts throughout this time.
