I’m very happy to answer this on behalf of the government, the advice that I have, is that of course, the government, during the course of this year has required 500m masks, and what has been a global shortage, at a time of extreme global shortage and a spike in demand, we were able to maintain that the nation and engage in domestic production, in particular that has seen already, 78 million masks dispatched from the National medical stop while according to the rules of the national medical stop while.
With regard specifically to aged care the national medical stockpile has provided aged care facilities with 18 million masks, 5 million gowns, 11 million clubs, or million goggles and face shields, 90,000 bottles of hands sanitiser, hundred and 50,000 clinical waste bags, the timeframe habits between 18 February 2020 and 20 October 2020 the Department of Health received requests and responded to 1769 requests for PPE, with dispatchers, and very significantly, all requests, all requests, from providers managing a COVID-19 outbreak were approved, in addition to that all requests for assistance outside of outbreaks, aged care providers could not find it to meet an outbreak were met.
100% of the complying requests we met.
According to the terms of the national medical stop while, and there are no cases we are aware of, where in complying request was not met and we did this on the basis of the medical advice, and we did this on the basis of the advice of the AHPCC, the medical expert panel which has guided Australia through this.
The provision of PPE has been one of the most significant and important achievements of this government. We have seen the outbreaks, we have seen the collapse across Italy and Spain, France, we have seen the shortages in New York and the United Kingdom, in relation to PPE. Against that background, these provisions have been consistent, they have been done on the basis of rules set by the medical experts, and we have met all of those requests which meet those requirements.
