How the Covid-19 Pandemic impacted supply chain of medical supplies at Hospitals?

 

 

The Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, by the World Health Organization as it has spread globally and has taken the lives of millions of people. It has spread over 100 countries, taken the lives lakhs of people and infected even more leading to a panic situation. The healthcare industry has stood strong even while facing a lot of challenges , including the difficulty in obtaining the supplies, even with the responsibility of millions of lives in their hand. So, myself Elza John would like know more about how they tackled this unprecedented situation in acquiring their medical supplies.

It was when the government implemented the complete lockdown in order to prevent the rapid spread of this disease, that Supply chain of the Hospitality was struck  as it was in the frontline in fighting this battle. Due to this there has been a delay in the shipments ,even shut down many firms due to the uncertainty in demand for many goods and services. This is not the case of the hospitality industry. For example, there has been rapid increase in the demand for Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) in order to protect the medical personnel’s and that too in large volumes with additional constraints of reduced shipping and flights making it all the more difficult in transporting from the place of production to the place of need.

Ventilators

Since, the corona virus attacks the lungs, any patient who is admitted in the hospital and is critical will need the medical assistance of a ventilator and this became a bigger roadblock since  most  had limited supplies and the global supply chain was at a standstill. So, the only option was to promote other business, who did not make them , to start producing them.

A commendable effort was made by the UK in forming the VentilatorChallengeUK, which was collaboration of various businesses across different sectors. They were successfully able to able to deliver over 10,000 ventilators to the National Health Service. This included forming a new supplier base where the parts where collected, handled, stored and delivered to the final destination . This bit was performed by DHL, which will help to speed up the process.