New York City stockpiled ventilators for a pandemic, only to later auction them off: report

[mystery-ak]

New York City stockpiled ventilators for a pandemic, only to later auction them off: report

By Tyler Olson | Fox News

In 2006, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration began purchasing ventilators to allow the city to be prepared for a pandemic like the current coronavirus crisis -- only for the city to later auction them off, according to a report.

ProPublica reported Monday that the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a report in 2006 on the city's preparedness for pandemic influenza -- similar to the 1918 Spanish Flu or the 2019 novel coronavirus -- that projected the city would need thousands of extra ventilators in order to properly treat all of its residents who got sick. The plan was then put into action, with the city initially buying 500 ventilators before it ran out of money to buy more and to maintain the ones it had already stockpiled, according to ProPublica.

Those ventilators were then auctioned off some time before 2016 because the city could not afford to maintain them in working order, partially because the model of ventilator the city had purchased was no longer in production after 2009, the report said.

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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-york-stockpiled-ventilators-for-pandemic-only-to-later-auction-them-off-report

[PeteS in CA]

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city-emergency-ventilator-stockpile-ended-up-on-the-auction-block

How New York City’s Emergency Ventilator Stockpile Ended Up on the Auction Block
by Justin Elliott, Annie Waldman and Joshua Kaplan April 6, 1:05 p.m. EDT

In July 2006, with an aggressive and novel strain of the flu circulating in Asia and the Middle East, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a sweeping pandemic preparedness plan.
...
The city’s department of health, working with the state, was to begin purchasing ventilators and to “stockpile a supply of facemasks,” according to the report. Shortly after it was released, Bloomberg held a pandemic planning summit with top federal officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, now the face of the national coronavirus response.

In the end, the alarming predictions failed to spur action. In the months that followed, the city acquired just 500 additional ventilators as the effort to create a larger stockpile fizzled amid budget cuts.

Even those extra ventilators are long gone, the health department said on Sunday. The lifesaving devices broke down over time and were auctioned off by the city at least five years ago because the agency couldn’t afford to maintain them.
...
Despite the warnings in the 2006 plan and the initial efforts to build a stockpile, de Blasio spokeswoman Avery Cohen said in a statement on Monday that cities “do not typically stockpile ventilators and that such emergency reserves are the responsibility of state and federal government.
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VersaMed was acquired by GE Healthcare in 2008 and the company discontinued the line of ventilators New York had bought, Lanza, the city health department spokesman, told ProPublica. “This was beyond our control but had a direct impact on cost and viability of maintaining a stockpile.” Annual maintenance costs for the 500 VersaMed ventilators, which includes replacing batteries and degrading parts, ran over $100,000 per year, Lanza said, adding that the ventilators were ultimately auctioned off by the city. It’s not clear who bought the devices and for how much. GE did not respond to questions related to the VersaMed ventilators, but a spokesperson said the company “provide(s) maintenance on any equipment that is under a service contract with GE.”

This is a fairly long article. The bottom line is that NYC knew what they should do, started to do it, then decided that when a crisis came they would pass the buck to the Feds. And sold off what they had bought: to somebody willing to pay $$ for it; without replacing it.