Medical workers at Bronx hospital say they were given Yankees ponchos as PPE

That’s not even in the ballpark of PPE.

Medical workers at a Bronx hospital say they were given Yankees ponchos to use as personal protective equipment amid a widespread supply shortage during the coronavirus outbreak.

An obstetrician-gynecologist resident at Montefiore Medical Center raised the major foul Tuesday night in a tweet accompanied by a photo of a plastic white-and-navy Yankees-branded rain poncho.

“I’m a physician at a hospital in NYC and THIS IS THE ‘PPE’ I WAS JUST HANDED for my shift. Our federal government has completely failed its health care workers. #GetUsPPE,” @racheljulie wrote.

Four other employees at the hospital told The New York Times that they’d been given bags with the ponchos and told to use the items inside as protective equipment.

All of the staffers, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution, said they refused to wear the coverings and instead reused old gowns or dipped into the medical center’s dwindling emergency supplies.

The employees noted that the Bronx Bomber gear didn’t cover the arms and had no openings in the back to allow for removal without contamination.

Montefiore Medical Center maintained the ponchos weren’t intended to be used as medical supplies and were just a gift to worn-down employees.

“We received a very generous donation of 2,500 ponchos from our Bronx neighbors and friends The New York Yankees,” it said in a statement Wednesday evening. “We distributed them, first come first served, to the first 2,500 of our staff who walked in the door last night and this morning. This was a gift intended for their personal use.”

A Yankees executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Times that someone at the hospital contacted the team recently, asking specifically for ponchos and the club donated thousands.

In an email to staff on Wednesday, the chief of neurology at Montefiore’s medical schools, sought to ease concerns about the ponchos.

“The hospital initiated the new PPE distribution today. As you enter the hospital, you are given a full set of PPE. We have confirmed that this occurred at all sites today,” she wrote, according to the Times.

“(For Mets fans who received Yankee rain ponchos, we feel you),” she added.

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