Whirlpool donates PPE to Spectrum Health Lakeland

BERRIEN COUNTY, Mich.--- Whirlpool donated hundred of thousands of personal protection equipment to Spectrum Health Lakeland, Friday. This donation was coordinated between Whirlpool, its suppliers and the White House.

"Thank you so much to Whirlpool for this unbelievable gift of protection," said Dr. Loren Hamel, President of Spectrum Health Lakeland. "They picked up the phone and called us and said 'What can we do? Is there anyway we can help'?", said Hamel.

The equipment had to be thoroughly vetted because so much of it came from China. "We do have proper export compliance with those and that was really critical for us to do that. We vetted a number of suppliers to make sure they met the requirements," said LIz Door, Whirlpool's Vice President of Procurement. 

But even after the equipment hit U.S. soil, there was no guarantee that the equipment would make it to Berrien County.

"We’ve heard from health care providers, we’ve heard from governors where they thought things were coming, the orders were made, the payments were made, then all of a sudden things didn’t show up," said Representative Fred Upton. "I wanted to make sure that I cut out all the red tape that we could so as soon as it touched down it was coming here."