Lawmakers Hear From Western Mass. Health Care Leaders On Pandemic Response

The Massachusetts Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management held the first of a series of statewide listening sessions on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carrie Matusko, who's with the Holyoke Health Center, was among those who testified.

She said in an interview she's concerned about recent guidance from the state that health care workers should return to pre-pandemic use of personal protective equipment by July 1.

"Health care providers are going to be expected to change face masks in between patients, change respirators in between patients — which fundamentally, from an infection control standpoint, is absolutely correct," Matusko said. "That's how they are designed to be used, and how they should be used. However, with the PPE supply chain issues that have happened, we still haven't totally recovered."

Matusko said it's particularly challenging to get the types and sizes of N-95 masks her staff needs.

Jaqueline Johnson, the chief operating officer of Springfield's Caring Health Center, also testified.

She said she's been trying to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates among the people who come through her doors by speaking a language they can understand. 

"Caring Health Center serves in over 38 languages on any given day," Johnson said. "One of the biggest things that we decided to do early on was to create a multitude of videos in different languages addressing why the vaccine is so important."

Johnson told legislators it would be helpful to have state resources to produce similar videos in the future