Since 2007, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has maintained 2400 LVT 1200 Ventilators, 26.1 million N95 respirators, 2.8 million treatment courses of oral antiviral medications, and 320 alternate care site caches ready for rapid deployment during a public health emergency and has provided preventive maintenance for all ventilators, keeping them in patient-ready order. Recently, CDPH lost its financial resources for storing and maintaining these public health and medical surge assets at the State level and is working through local Health Departments (LHD), Private sector, and the federal government to find alternative storage space, in an effort to keep the assets available for large-scale emergency events in California. Contra Costa County’s Public Health Division will accept responsibility for maintenance and distribution of the State stockpiled assets that include alternate care site caches, antiviral medications, N95 respirators, and ventilators, as specified in the MOU.
Approval of this Memorandum of Understanding Agreement will allow the County to coordinate or monitor assets transferred from CDPH to other identified Health Care facility locations, gain full control and rights to use, assign these public health and medical surge assets for rapid deployment during a public health emergency, and store these assets in local warehouses or place them in hospitals and clinics. This agreement includes agreeing to indemnify and hold CDPH harmless for claims arising out of the County’s performance under the Agreement.
If this agreement is not approved, the residents of Contra Costa County will not have quick access to these public health and medical surge assets if needed during an emergency response.