Manitoba bought 500K reusable N95 respirators. 3 years later, 98% are in storage | CBC News

The province of Manitoba spent $35 million to buy reusable N95 respirators from a local company in 2020 to protect health-care workers during the pandemic, but three years later, only a small fraction of those masks were ever used.

Manitoba announced in May 2020 it would buy 500,000 reusable N95 silicone masks from Winnipeg-based company Precision ADM Inc. The masks could be sterilized and reused up to 30 times, the province said at the time. It was a time when personal protective equipment (PPE) was in critical short supply around the world due to COVID-19.

Now the province says about 490,000 of those respirators remain in inventory, and the process for cleaning them takes too long for health-care staff.

“Initially believed that a quick hand wipe would be sufficient when using and reusing these respirators, Health Canada’s standard operating procedure for hand-wipe cleaning would require health-care workers to disassemble, clean and reassemble the respirators multiple times per shift,” a provincial spokesperson told CBC News in an email. 

“The hand-wipe method takes approximately 14 minutes to complete each time. This is time that would take staff away from providing direct patient care.”

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said nurses did not have time to sanitize masks multiple times during a shift.

“These were the days when nurses were not taking breaks to eat a sandwich. Given the fact that these units were less comfortable and more labour intensive, it is not surprising that the majority went unused,” Jackson said in an email. 

She said that at the time, in 2020, it made sense to source PPE within Manitoba and give the province control of the supply chain. 

“Unfortunately, time and resources made these particular masks less than ideal,” Jackson said.

The province says the contract was meant to ensure the respirators were available to Manitoba health-care workers at a time when choices were limited due to the high demand around the world, combined with significant supply chain issues.

“The Manitoba government, like its counterparts across Canada and worldwide, made decisions based on addressing the innumerable demands and uncertainties during the pandemic,” the provincial spokesperson said in an email to CBC. 

“The approach taken reflected cautiously ensuring that a product existed at a time when choices were limited due to the high demand across the world.”

‘Success story,’ minister said

A government record disclosing details of the purchase shows the province bought the masks in an untendered contract with Precision ADM Inc. for $35,572,500 on May 5, 2020, and said the “project schedule does not allow sufficient time to conduct a competitive process” for the purchase.

The contract followed an expression of interest process the province issued in April that year to find manufacturers interested in — and capable of — manufacturing reusable N95 masks, a government news release said in May 2020.

Contract details gave the province an option to extend the initial purchase of 500,000 respirators to buy an additional 500,000 of them within 14 months. 

In the news release announcing the contract in May 2020, then-Central Services Minister Reg Helwer called the purchase “an extraordinary success story” for Manitoba.

“By working together and harnessing the ingenuity of Manitobans, we’re helping keep Manitobans safe and healthy in the face of this global pandemic,” said Helwer.

Martin Petrak, CEO of Precisim ADM Medical division, told CBC he could not comment on any client or contract details, citing strict client confidentiality obligations.

“We appreciate your interest in our made-in-Manitoba story and solutions of supply chain challenges that helped protect front-line health-care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said in an email. 

In November 2020 when the province took delivery of the first N95-grade respirators under the contract, Petrak told CBC he was proud that the technology in the respirators would be able to help hospital staff.

He said the challenge was to take the design of respirators used in other industries, like construction, and make it into a product useful in health care.

Expiry dates coming up

The province says the respirators, as well as the filters and caps used with them, are being properly stored in a provincial warehouse.

They are being used by staff who are unable to fit a disposable mask, the province says, and discussions are underway to find out whether they could be used in the field by paramedics and other professionals who use filtration masks.

The masks and filters, however, have three-year expiry dates.

That means the masks will start to expire in January 2024, and the filters begin expiring in November 2023, the provincial spokesperson said.

In light of that, the province says the manufacturer is “working with Health Canada on extending it to five years and it anticipates this will happen in the next two to three months.”

A spokesperson for Health Canada told CBC News, “If the manufacturer wishes to extend the expiry date and has information that supports the continued safety and effectiveness of the respirator, then they are free to do so without a Health Canada review and authorization since it is a Class I medical device.”