The shipment of PPE from Turkey, which had been flown over on RAF aircraft, doesn’t meet UK safety standards and therefore is unusable
The 84-tonne PPE shipment that contained provisions such as 400,000 medical gowns has now been impounded in a warehouse owned by the government near Heathrow Airport in west London, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Under huge pressure from the opposition, as well as from the public to procure more PPE, the British government sent requests for the essential equipment to a Turkish company, that until the global pandemic, only had experience in producing tracksuits and shirts.
After this fiasco, it is clear that the Turkish company were not able to produce gowns to a quality that met British standards.
Inspectors have said that the Personal Protective Equipment that was flown into the UK from Turkey by the RAF on the 22nd of April is defective and cannot be used.
Shortages of PPE, have been a key point of criticism of the government throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, this essential equipment is needed to protect front-line healthcare workers treating patients with the virus, forcing some NHS staff to buy their own.
The government secured a large supply of medical gowns from Turkey, which, after an initial delay, eventually arrived on the 22nd of April. The delay was reportedly a result of the UK sending a late request for PPE to Turkish authorities.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said:
“We believed this equipment was going to be of the right standard, but when our experts here tested it, they found it wasn’t,”
“All the PPE that we acquire, we expect it to be of a standard that we set out when we purchase it.”
The Northern Ireland Secretary would not comment on whether the PPE shipment should have been checked in accordance to UK safety measures before it left Turkey, but he did acknowledge that “in this instance some of it has turned out not to be good enough.”
“All the PPE that we acquire, we expect it to be of a standard that we set out when we purchase it.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement:
“This is a global pandemic with many countries procuring PPE, leading to shortages around the world, not just the UK.”
“All deliveries of PPE are checked to ensure the equipment meets the safety and quality standards our frontline staff need.”
“If equipment does not meet our specifications or pass our quality assurance processes, it is not distributed to the front line.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is largely believed to be announcing an easing, or at least some changes, of the current lockdown measures in the UK on Sunday, some are even speculating that he will change the “stay at home” message to something similar to “stay safe”.
This news comes as the UK has become the country with the most amount of cornavirus-related deaths in Europe, after surpassing 30,000 COVID-19 fatalities.
The latest official figures from the government show that 30,076 people have now died in UK hospitals, care homes and within the wider community following testing positive for contracting COVID-19, a rise of 649 deaths from the day before.
