Officials Tout Medical Gear's Arrival in State - Arkansas Democrat Gazette

by Baluster Medical December 14, 2020

After losing multiple shipments to other nations and states, the first shipments of PPE to be delivered to Arkansas in the early days of the 2020 pandemic brought much needed relief to the governor and the state's health care workers. Baluster was able to leverage their existing supply chain and creatively navigate the shifting obstacles and challenges to deliver when others could not.

"A jubilant Gov. Asa Hutchinson was on hand Sunday to look over the first major shipment of personal protective equipment for medical personnel since the state's first covid-19 patient was confirmed March 11."

"Early Sunday morning, six FedEx tractor-trailer rigs lined up at a federal surplus warehouse on Remount Road in North Little Rock and began discharging their cargo of protective gloves, isolation gowns, face masks, and face shields, all bound for health care providers throughout the state."

"It does take a load off of my mind," he said. "I know what the need is out there, and I know what obstacles [the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences] ... has faced in getting it here, everything from shipping deadlines to competing with other states to getting the production time, and then you didn't believe it until it's physically here in the warehouse, is that right? I mean, I heard the other day that there was a piece of a shipment that came here the other day that was supposed to go to France. I mean, those kinds of mistakes, I literally call it a global jungle where everybody -- states, nations, and the Department of Defense -- is competing for this product. So until it's here, yes, I worried about it."

"Hutchinson said much of the tension had to do with the fact that other shipments had been diverted even after they were supposedly bound for Arkansas."

"There was one shipment coming from Germany through Spain that got confiscated in Spain," he said. "They needed the PPE, and it was headed for Arkansas. There's the same thing in China where you get outbid by New York, so this team has done an extraordinary job overcoming every one of those obstacles to get these supplies to Arkansas."

Read Full Original Article from Arkansas Democrat Gazette from April 13, 2020

(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / Thomas Metthe)