Thank you very much for the question.
I think we definitely took the recommendation on, and I think there would be two components that I would point to in terms of the department's response.
The first would be around the automated tool, which is very much centred on both outbound PPE and inbound PPE, having a very good sense of the type of PPE, the supply, the quantity, and where it's going. To give you a sense, since the beginning of the pandemic we received 2,241 requests coming into the department. Over 20 million units of PPE have been shipped. At this stage, 2,201 have been delivered.
Through this automated system and through the changes that we've done in the department, we can really track the flow of PPE that we have and we are able to determine both the expiry and the gaps in supply, whether it be gloves, sanitizers or whatever it may be. We have a very good sense of that. I think, as I noted in my remarks, that new tool, the sophistication that we brought to our current systems and how we manage the flow have allowed us now to build our supply to a 12-month turnaround period.
The way we worked with communities was that we would approve requests within two days of coming in and ship them right away. The average arrival of the PPE would be within 10 days.
I should also note that we provided PPE to the 51 communities and their health care workers, but we did not limit our PPE stock to just those health workers. If a school called, if a police officer called, if there were needs in the community, we did everything we could to respond to that need, and that was not limited to on reserve. We actually sent PPE supply to urban indigenous centres to be able to provide those essential supports for urban indigenous individuals who found themselves out of the community or even in very dire situations, in terms of the indigenous homeless population. It was very much not just limited to that.
How does it help us going into the future? I think we have a much better system to plan and track and to enable us to have confidence in our ability to meet the demands as they come in.