Healthy Living: The Arc stocked up early to protect against COVID-19
As Connecticut’s mild winter rolled into spring, a new virus was slinking westward. Most Americans had yet to hear of coronavirus. But a New London helicopter mom named Laurie Herring Thomen was all over it.
Her son Jesse was in Asia post-college. As Laurie tracked Jesse’s travels through December, she grew alarmed. “Before they ever named it COVID,” she says, “I was hearing about it, and it was scary as hell.”
Chief Operations and Quality Officer of The Arc Eastern Connecticut, Herring Thomen moved quickly to buy personal protective equipment (PPE). “I began ordering in January when PPE was not difficult to get. I ordered it as a precaution. I had a sense of it, but I didn’t have a real sense of it, or I would have ordered a lot more.”
The Arc Eastern Connecticut serves over 700 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, nearly 100 of them in 24-hour homes operating seven days a week. Connecticut’s Department of Developmental Services (DDS) ensures quality for approximately 195 service providers like The Arc statewide. By March, DDS mandates for PPE were in effect.
As The Arc’s service network began eating up PPE, prices skyrocketed. Supplies grew short. “It would last long enough to get another supply in,” Herring Thomen says. “It’s easier now. In the beginning, you had to hunt high and low.”
The Arc’s PPE inventory includes 10,000 isolation gowns; 12,000 masks; 45,000 pairs of gloves; 700 face shields; and 300 pairs of goggles. The biggest challenge is cost. The agency’s last order for 5,000 isolation gowns totaled $24,000. Luckily, the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut stepped in with an $11,500 PPE grant, essentially cutting that bill in half.
“PPE is about saving lives,” Herring Thomen says. “Not just about protecting me but protecting you. It would be nice if the community understood that as well.”
Kathleen Stauffer is chief executive officer of The Arc Eastern Connecticut. For information on The Arc, go to www.TheArcECT.org. For more articles by this author visit www.kathleenstauffer.com
