On Monday, President Trump said he disagrees with a report from his own administration that found that hospitals have severe shortages of coronavirus testing supplies, and questioned whether the report was politically biased.
According to the report released Monday morning by the nonpartisan Health and Human Services inspector general's office, the lack of tests and long waits for results are a huge problem. "Three out of 4 U.S. hospitals told the inspector general's office they are already treating patients with confirmed or suspected covid-19, and they expect to be overwhelmed. The report did not criticize Trump administration actions," Richard Alonso-Zaldivar reports for The Associated Press.
When a reporter asked Trump about the survey, the president said without evidence, "It is wrong." He asked who the HHS inspector general was and when she was appointed. He then said that the report was "a typical fake news deal" because HHS inspector general Christi Grimm served in the Obama administration. Grimm, who has worked in HHS for over two decades, was appointed earlier this year as the principal deputy inspector general, on an interim basis.
The HHS report was based on a telephone survey of 323 hospitals nationwide from March 23-27. "A key insight from the report was that different problems are building on each other to entangle the whole system," Alonso-Zaldivar reports. Essentially, slow or no tests means hospitals have to keep unconfirmed covid-19 patients longer, which takes up more beds and resources, and increases the workload and stress of staff already worried about keeping themselves uninfected.
Moreover, "overtime hours and increased use of supplies are raising costs at the same time that many hospitals experience a revenue crunch because elective surgeries have been canceled," Alonso-Zaldivar reports.
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