I'm surprised to hear that ventilators are among the supplies that the $135.9 million will be used to purchase. I would point out that a $237‑million contract was previously awarded for the purchase of 40,000 ventilators, and only 12,500 of them were used. Whenever I ask whether the government is going to be reimbursed for the ventilators it doesn't use or whether it plans to sell them to the rest of the world, either I don't get an answer or I'm told that there are plans. The answer is always quite vague.
You can understand my surprise, then, to learn that some of the $135.9 million will be used to purchase more ventilators. We've already bought nearly 30,000 too many. We didn't receive the 40,000 ventilators, but it's quite an impressive amount. It translates to about a hundred ventilators per health care facility, if you take into account facilities with just an employee or two as well as bigger institutions like hospitals.
This comes as a surprise, I must say.