Question

The healthcare supply chain is facing acute disruptions amid the global health crisis of COVID19 outbreak. Hospitals are already reporting shortages of key equipment needed to care for critically ill patients, including ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical staff. As a graduate student in logistics and supply chain management program, do you have any suggestions to mitigate the disruptions, especially for the healthcare supply chain in Canada? (Please just list your 6 points briefly)

Answer 1

• The COVID 19 has shown how the Supply Chain jam can disrupt the internal operations of the businesses in Canada since the bulk of the PPE was from China which is most affected.

• The business and the logistics need to decide to make sure that the local PPE productions of the Canadian markets are on and the Hospitals are well supplied.

• This gives the logistics to make the machinery to be shifted to the no COVID19 areas with fit people on the job to make the PPE in bulk for the internal consumptions at every location of the nation.

• The massive PPE equipment manufactured can then be taken for the local testing facilities to inspect the PPEs for discharge for the home hospitals around Canada which were previously fed by the Chinese markets pre COVID 19 era.  

• These masks from the manufacturing centers need to be distributed to the nearest hospitals to refresh their PPE stocks at the Hospitals.

• The healthcare in this pandemic needs a good supply where the internal dependence over the external supply chain for the Canadian markets needs to be applied for.