3. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:45 pm on 22 April 2020.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 3:45, 22 April 2020

First, I'd just like to say that this was made by a couple of asylum seekers for me. It's obviously not suitable for healthcare workers, but it's beautifully made, and it's the sort of thing that we could get, for example, our design technology students making. So, perhaps you could pass that idea on to the education Minister. 

A couple of questions: one is around PPE. There is clearly a global bidding war going on, and care homes are simply too small and far too busy to be engaging in that. So, it really is the role of government, both local and national, to ensure that we have the PPE we need. I think we shouldn't be shooting the messenger when Sir Martin Evans says that it is astonishing that an advanced, industrial country like ourselves isn't able to source PPE from within our own country. And I don't mean that we need to be producing all items of PPE in Wales; I mean across the UK we should be able to be self-sufficient in PPE. And as this coronavirus pandemic is going to go on for many months, we really do need to ratchet up our ability to produce it for ourselves, otherwise there's absolutely no hope for developing countries. I just wanted to ask a question on that, which is what thought, if any, has been given to making it safe to reuse certain items of PPE, because that is what is happening anyway by people on the front line who fail to get certain items when they need them. So, is there any evidence that some of it could be reused rather than disposed of immediately after being used?

My second question is around testing, because you say that you're confident that all the right people have been tested. Well, some of my constituents who are care workers have had huge difficulty getting tested simply because they don't have a car. You cannot turn up to Cardiff City Stadium or these other drive-in facilities if you don't have a car, and putting them in a taxi doesn't meet the social distancing guidelines for someone with suspected COVID-19. But by not providing this testing, we are delaying the return to work of the individual who may not have COVID, and we are submitting their families to having to be self-isolated. And, so, as well as home testing—and I'd like a bit more information on the timescale for home testing—I wonder if you could tell us what possibility there is for mobile testing by the testers going to the care homes, and the prison, and other places where we know that people need to be tested in order to be able to make the work of care homes more manageable.