Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:44 pm on 1 April 2020.
Minister, I'm seeing a disconnect here between the reality on the ground and what I'm hearing from you. The reality is that front-line nurses do not have protective equipment. The reality is that care companies do not have protective equipment. So, this weekend I've dealt with constituents, disabled constituents, showing symptoms, unable to be looked after and just left. I interviewed Ashley Morgan. He's a young man in Caerau, and he's got a 3D printer, and he's made his own masks to a very, very good specification, and he's now supplying the Heath hospital and other areas. There are queues of medical staff outside his property, almost. So, we have an army, almost, of people—literally some of them working in their own front rooms, own back rooms—producing good quality protective gear. Ashley can make thousands per week if he gets support. So, first of all, the first part of this is there's a reservoir of people out there ready and willing. I think that the large supply chains have failed us. What can we do to enable those people? Who can they contact? When can they contact them? And how and when can they be supported?
The second thing I want to talk about is testing. You received an e-mail on 19 March—so did the First Minister—offering testing kits, I'm advised already validated, and nobody responded to that company. Equally, Public Health Wales was then contacted afterwards, and not until I intervened was there any contact with that supplier. The contact, basically, stated—I saw the e-mail, it said they'd be contacted, maybe, as need arises. Well, the need is here. We're not following the World Health Organization advice, I know that, but I think we all agree that we need more testing anyway.
There are still medical staff, whose families have symptoms and who cannot be tested, sat in isolation needlessly. So, my question to you is: how and when are we going to enable people to be tested? We should be testing every person who is suspected of having the coronavirus. I think it's really essential that we realise the absolute emergency on the ground, where people are simply not safe doing their everyday work because they don't have the equipment.
And to go back to the carer, if a carer has the virus and is not showing any symptoms and they're visiting vulnerable people on a daily basis, they're going to give them the virus if they're not wearing protective equipment—gloves, masks. I just don't understand why the front line is lacking so much at the moment. So, my question, really, is: when, how and who do these people contact?