Encino pediatrician is on a mission to give thousands of PPE to patients and nursing homes
A doctor in the San Fernando Valley has gone a step further to keep his patients, employees and those in local nursing home healthy. Now, he's asking for the public's help to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
ENCINO, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A doctor in the San Fernando Valley has made it his mission to protect his patients and nursing homes by giving out thousands of face masks and other protective gear.
Now, he's asking for the public's help to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Encino Pediatrician Dr. Daniel Bruckner is going a step further to keep his patients, employees and visitors of private pediatric facilities healthy.
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His patients call him Dr. Danny, and he has made it his mission to give out thousands of surgical masks at pediatricians' offices and nursing homes.
Bruckner unsuccessfully attempted to order PPE when the coronavirus first began to spread across the U.S.
"We contacted our suppliers and they said they were on back order already," he said.
It would have meant a six-week wait to receive the critical supplies. So he found another way - by getting in contact with a friend who distributes PPE around the world.
"And I ordered 30,000 of them. I just figured I'd get them out to the people that need them," said Bruckner.
That may sound like a lot, but it really isn't. Bruckner says he supplies a nursing home with hundreds of employees, and it goes through thousands of masks every week.
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"My goal is to supply these people with enough of them that they don't have to reuse them," said Bruckner.
As you can imagine, this sort of operation is not cheap, but since he is ordering large quantities it is bringing the price down to about $1 per mask.
He's asking for the public's help, too. Bruckner has set up this gofundme.com page, which has raised more than $40,000.
He's also ordering face shields and isolation gowns. But more than anything, he says wearing a mask is paramount, to stopping the spread of this horrible disease.
"It's not just the doctor who needs to wear it, but every parent needs to wear it, everyone accompanying the patient. And in the nursing homes, I mean everyone coming to visit the nursing home patient, everyone. Because if one person gets it, it can spread like wildfire," Bruckner said.
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