Coronavirus Update: Daly City Donating PPE To Seton Medical Center
DALY CITY (CBS SF) – The city of Daly City announced Monday that it will donate hundreds of pieces of personal protective equipment to Seton Medical Center, which is caring for novel coronavirus patients.
The city will donate 500 surgical gowns from the North County Fire Authority and 750 gloves and 100 protective masks from the reserves of its Department of Water and Wastewater Resources to the medical center, one of many across the state and country struggling to keep up with demand for protective equipment as cases of the virus surge.
"We are doing everything we can to support our local hospital by donating PPE from our own very limited supplies," Daly City Mayor Glenn Sylvester said.
COMPLETE COVERAGE: CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
The state leased the facility last month as coronavirus cases began to spike. Verity Health System, the facility's owner, filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and had announced plans earlier this year to shutter the facility. Verity Health is now operating Seton Medical Center on the state's behalf and can accept up to 220 patients at a time.
State and local officials had argued that closing the facility would have created a health care desert for the roughly 27,000 people who use the hospital each year.
"We have advocated against its closure and have taken steps to ensure that the property remains a hospital," Daly City Vice Mayor Juslyn Manalo said. "We are grateful to the state for keeping it operational through the pandemic, and extremely thankful to the frontline health care workers that need to be protected."
Seton Medical Center also received a donation of 12,000 N95 masks and 1,200 goggles from San Mateo County's emergency supply reserves last week. Daly City officials plan to deliver the equipment to the hospital Monday afternoon.
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