A Romanian hospital has disposed of thousands of high-protection masks after medics discovered they were not fit for purpose.
Some 12,000 FFP3 masks bought by the hospital were found to have defects according to Cristian Oancea, the manager of the Victor Babes Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Timisoara, southwest Romania. He said the matter had been reported to police and public health authorities.
Dr. Oancea said the hospital had paid 120,000 euros for a batch of 25,000 FFP3 masks, of which nearly half were sub-standard, news.ro reported.
„We pulled them from all the departments. The filter kept falling off them,” he said. “We bought the masks through an acquisition procedure and we have the guarantees for them.”
“This is a crime against the medical staff. We’re talking about a crime. The good masks were mixed up with the bad masks.”
He said the hospital had been in touch with the suppliers who assured us they would cooperate.”
„Unfortunately 12,000 out of 25,000 masks have defects and that’s a crime.”
“You can’t make people wear masks with defects, and to go into a ‘red zone’ with these masks where they inhale SARS CoV-2 contaminated air and then expect medical staff to be healthy.”
“Fortunately, our staff uses these masks often and quickly realized that the filter kept falling off and came unstuck very quickly. However, it’s hard to tell whether the material is the proper standard because they all look the same,” he said, asking authorities to check the quality of the masks.
The FFP3 mask is the most filtering of the FFP masks. It protects against very fine particles such as asbestos and ceramic, but doesn’t shield against gases.
