The lack of access to basic PPE in hospitals across the country is causing inexcusable risk to physicians, patients, and communities. Your voice is needed now more than ever to urge our elected officials to act quickly and boldly.

In any free moment you have, we urge you to speak up to your elected officials at the state and federal levels and demand action. This is not a partisan issue, all elected officials must act now.

We have written phone scripts for calling offices as well as language you can copy and paste into the body of an email.

We urge anyone active on Twitter to post the following, being sure to tag your elected officials:

We need personal protective equipment and we need it now. Make PPE a priority immediately! #GetMePPE #ACOEP

Click here to find your representatives on Twitter.

Click here to find contact information for your senators.

Click here to contact your representative.

Phone script:

I am an emergency physician and voter from zip code                     . I am calling to urge the Senator/Representative to make personal protective equipment in hospitals, specifically in emergency departments, a priority. Every day we go without these essentials we place our patients, families, and ourselves at risk. I ask that we not only increase production immediately, but that we utilize the national strategic stockpile.

Thank you.

Email Text:

I am your constituent and an emergency medicine physician fighting for our community on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare workers, especially those in emergency medicine, face a dire shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). Each day we work without these essential supplies we put ourselves, our patients, and our families at great risk.

I am writing to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to make this a priority. I stand with my colleagues from the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians, as well as other national and international organizations and specialties, to urge you to distribute the equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile immediately, as well as find new avenues for immediate production of these life-saving items including N-95 masks.

Please act immediately. Without these measures we are severely limited in our ability to fight this crisis.

Sincerely,