Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Wednesday ordered all Oregon hospitals, outpatient clinics and health care providers to cease all “non-emergency procedures,” in order to preserve equipment like masks, gowns and gloves for doctors and others treating coronavirus patients.

Brown said the measure extends to veterinarians and dentists, and applies to all personal protective equipment.

“It is critical that we preserve every piece of personal protective equipment we have in Oregon so that our health care workers can keep themselves safe while treating COVID-19,” Brown said in a statement issued around 5 p.m. Wednesday. “If we do not take immediate action, the surge in demand in our hospitals for masks, gowns and gloves will quickly outstrip the limited supplies they have available. We cannot let that happen.”

Many major hospital systems, Kaiser Permanente, Oregon Health & Sciences University and Providence Health & Services, have already cut back elective operations.

Charles Boyle, a spokesman for Brown’s office, said a non-emergency procedure refers to any procedure that can be postponed unless there is a risk of permanent harm from delaying the procedure.

“Some examples of when procedures would not be delayed: if there is a threat to a patient’s life if the procedure is not performed, threat of permanent dysfunction of an extremity or organ system, risk of metastasis or progression of staging, or risk of rapidly worsening to severe symptoms,” Boyle said in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Hours before Brown issued her order, Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen told lawmakers that without extraordinary efforts by the federal government, “we are going to run out” of needed protective gear for front-line health care workers.

Allen told lawmakers that Oregon is in the initial phases of an unprecedented health crisis, which will last for months.

Allen said the rate of testing has gone up, with private sector testing increasing the state’s testing capacity. He said so far, Oregon has tested more than 1,200 people.

As the pace of testing increases and more people are being tested and hospitalized, Allen said Oregon is likely to run out of supplies soon.

He said the state started out addressing the coronavirus outbreak with almost 590,000 N95 masks, used to protect health care workers from airborne hazards. He said the state has used 28 percent of its supply, and is down to 421,000.

The state has now used two-thirds of its surgical procedure masks, going from 49,000 to 18,000. The state has used 83 percent of its 23,000 surgical procedure gowns, Allen said.

He said the state is pursuing several options to quickly restock supplies.

Ordinarily, he said, healthcare providers would go through their ordinary suppliers. But the majority of protective medical equipment suppliers are in China, which Allen said has prohibited the export of protective equipment and other medical supplies.

Allen said the state has been distributing out of its own stockpile across Oregon over the past few weeks, but said that supply is finite, too.

He said state leaders have been trying to access national stockpiles of medical supplies through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and so far has received 10 percent of the supplies they’ve asked for.

He said even using gear not intended for health-care workers, such as protective masks and gowns worn by high-tech workers in ultra-clean fabrication labs, wouldn’t be enough to solve the supply problem.

“I’m deeply concerned that within weeks, we’ll have providers who’ll need to treat patients without masks, without face shields,” he said. “That’s a critical problem.”

CORONAVIRUS IN OREGON: THE LATEST NEWS

—Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR

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