A Kamloops councillor is concerned about whether some businesses will have enough personal protective equipment to actually open when they are allowed to.
Sadie Hunter says it could be a challenge for a lot of businesses and non-profits to acquire that type of medical gear. NL News has spoken to several local businesses whose reopening plans are status quo, because they aren’t sure if they’ll have PPE.
“Would the city be able to look into using our procurement process to procure larger orders of PPE?” Hunter said at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“Knowing how that works as an economy of scale, but that would make things easier and make it more accessible for smaller organizations or businesses that may not be able to access it regularly enough and consistently enough to be able to open, to be able to provide it for their staff and for potential clients or customers.”
CAO David Trawin says it’s been a challenge to even get enough PPE for city staff, but he says the city’s procurement department is looking into what it can do for businsses and organizations.
“They’re also looking into some of our contracts to see if we can pass on anything we buy to another buyer or to another organization, whether that’s restrictive buyer contracts. They’re also looking at whether if we do have certain PPE available through our suppliers, whether we can just pass on that supplier’s name to the (Kamloops) Chamber and move forward on that.”
Trawin says some smaller communities have obtained larger amounts of PPE to distribute to businesses, but he says the amount that Kamloops will need could make it complicated to try and do the same thing here.