Photos: The faulty protective gear sent to US care homes, from gowns without arm holes to strapless masks

St. Paul Elder Services, Inc.

• FEMA's $134 million shipment of PPE to COVID-19 frontline workers in nursing homes included expired surgical masks and "glorified garbage bag gowns."
• The federal government has distributed dozens of shipments of faulty PPE to nursing home staff across the country.
• FEMA said faulty PPE represented a minority of the shipments.

FEMA (The Federal Emergency Management Agency) has distributed $134 million-worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) to frontline workers in nursing homes across the country.

But some of the recipients weren't best pleased.

Dozens of the shipments were faulty— from sleeve-less plastic gowns that resemble jumbo garbage bags to expired surgical masks.

Two rounds of deliveries were made in late-May to early-June, then mid-June to late-July.

Brendan Williams, President & CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, told Business Insider his facilities received two shipments of unusable PPE in May and June, including oversized gowns you need to punch armholes into.

When complaints were made to FEMA, the agency told caregivers they weren't wearing the gowns properly according to Williams.

"Roughly 92% of licensed nursing assistants in nursing homes are women, according to the Paraprofessional Health Institute. Most are women of color," Williams said. "To suggest that they should wear garbage bags — or, perhaps worse, didn't know how to wear garbage bags — is symbolic of the long-standing government marginalization of a workforce that cares for a population that is predominantly Medicaid."