SPRINGFIELD – It was almost like a covert operation out of a James Bond movie but instead of nuclear secrets staff from Baystate Health were trying to buy medical masks.

The cloak-and-dagger operation started about three weeks ago when supply experts at the hospital got a tip on a possible shipment of the KN95 masks, which are most sought after by medical personnel. It involved a clandestine trip to a secret location in the mid-Atlantic and was almost thwarted by evil agents until a hero stepped in to save the day.

With Baystate nurses, doctors and technicians desperate for high-grade respirator masks to be used while treating COVID-19 patients, Dr. Andrew Artenstein, the Baystate Health chief physician executive and chief academic officer who was put in charge of its incident command for COVID-19, started working with officials in supply to try to somehow find the masks.

“I’ve been in the game for a long time and I’ve never had to be involved in supply chain because it has always worked,” said Artenstein. “It generally works pretty well but right now it is not.”

Artenstein, whose specialty is infectious diseases, has more than 30 years of experience working in multiple countries including serving as an active duty service physician in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. and has been responsible for coordinating pandemic preparedness efforts. Still, he said he has never struggled for a shortage of basic supplies of personal protective equipment anywhere.

Most health systems have supply experts who know how to acquire equipment at any time, but these are unusual times and their typical sources have long since run dry. Instead, they have been using any connection they and find, no matter how unusual or bizarre, to acquire equipment.

In March, a team member learned of the possibility of buying as many as 500,000 masks through an acquaintance of a friend. The information seemed more solid than many convoluted tips the team had been following and the price, while more expensive than usual, was still reasonable, he said.

“They came across a lead and we vetted it,” Artenstein said. “This is a lead where the vendor had a track record.”

The team found out the masks were KN95 masks made in China - not the N95 masks made in the United States - which sometimes do not provide the seal needed to make them safe for medical personnel. The team had the vendor ship a few samples so they could be fit tested and the ones they received passed the examination, he said.

The team was still concerned the masks would not be representative of all the supplies but made arrangements to go down to a warehouse states away to seal the deal and hired two trucks to bring the masks back.

“We had a lot of shipments never arrive. We would get outbid or we would be told they got stuck in transit. It was better to go down and escort them back,” he said.

Three of the team and a fit-tester arranged to fly in a small plane to the warehouse. Artenstein elected to drive because they would not be able to maintain social distance in flight if all of them went together and he was most the most likely of the group to have been exposed to the coronavirus because of his work in the hospital.

When they arrived at the secret warehouse, they opened a few boxes and found the masks passed the test. The only disappointment was instead to the 500,000 they had arranged to acquire, there were 250,000 and another about 130,000 face masks that they also hoping to purchase, he said.

They were ready to pay and have them loaded on a truck. Artenstein said it may be an overreaction, but the team even had the truck disguised as a food service vehicle because they were concerned that it would be driving through states that are also hard-hit by the pandemic and they didn’t want it attracting attention or stopped.

But while they were in the warehouse, the group was confronted by a group of FBI agents who demanded their credentials and started asking questions, Artenstein said.

“It was a new initiative, federal agents were fanning out to various sites. They were there to make sure the equipment there was going to make it to hospitals and first responders and no one else,” he said.

The team turned over their credentials explaining the masks were going to a hospital and were desperately needed. While the FBI gave them the green light, other federal agents believed to be from Homeland Security stepped in to and made moves to stop the delivery, he said.

“I was worried this may not happen after all of this,” Artenstein said.

That is when the team members started calling everyone and anyone they could think of to see if someone could help them.

Springfield U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, who is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he got a call from Mark A. Keroack, president & CEO of Baystate Health, that afternoon asking for help.

Neal and his staff then quickly got on the phone to help the team.

“I was told they were about to put a hold on the equipment,” Neal said. “I intervened directly and I indicated that it was unacceptable.”

He said it is an example of how local advocacy can work. Neal said he understands the problem of supply and demand makes getting equipment a challenge, but he said he wanted to make sure the health workers in his region would have what the needed.

After a more than 17-hour affair, the equipment arrived and was unloaded into a Baystate Health Systems warehouse. Medical supplies are now so valuable, hospital officials have taken the extraordinary step of hiring a security guard for the warehouse. Previously those precautions are only taken for opioids and other drugs, Artenstein said.

Baystate Health Systems employees use between 1,500 to 2,000 masks a day and a system has been developed so they can be steam cleaned and re-used several times so the supply is holding out while employees continue to search for more, he said.

“We were and are still in urgent need of the basic supplies of personal protective equipment. We have some things we need but we do not have it all,” Artenstein said.

Now the hospital needs disposable gowns. They are using some gowns that can be laundered and re-used and hospitals in places such as New York are using things like rain ponchos when the supplies of disposable gowns run out but there is a problem with spreading infection when doctors, nurses and technicians take them off, he said.

When the team announced they had scored a sizable supply of masks however it brought a little light to a staff that is working hard to care for victims of the pandemic.

“I think when they heard we got a bunch of masks they were very happy,” he said. “They are very appropriately worried.”

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