The Ministry of Health sells millions of mouth caps, which it has purchased with taxpayers’ money, at bargain prices to foreign buyers. They then return the caps to the Dutch market.
Since the start of the corona crisis, the ministry has kept an emergency stock of about 700 million face masks. 300 million of these are in danger of reaching their expiry date next year. That is why the ministry is now trying to get rid of that.
Lithuanian buyer
One of the suppliers that sold masks to the ministry at the start of the corona crisis is the Mouthmask Factory. In 2020, it supplied 48 million surgical mouth masks for a price of 15 to 30 euros per box of fifty, say owners Fleur Bakker and Johan Blom. The ministry has now sold 26 million of these caps to the Lithuanian company Baltic Masks, both the ministry and the Lithuanian company confirm.
In total, 161 million face masks have been sold abroad, the ministry said. The Mouthmask Factory has heard from various foreign buyers that they are buying the caps from the ministry for 64 cents per box of fifty. Baltic Masks itself does not want to say how much it paid for the mouth masks, but speaks of “a really good price“.
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The company also produces mouth caps itself, but says it has bought the Dutch masks because they were so cheap.
One tenth of the price
BJ Hudepohl, manager at mouth mask manufacturer Lemoine Holland, also sees how the caps he supplied to the ministry disappear abroad. Lemoine’s caps have been sold by the ministry to a commercial party. Via Asia and France, they were again offered to Lemoine this week, for a tenth of the price.
“It’s a shame that they are sold to the rest of the world, while we make them for Dutch healthcare,” says Hudepohl.
Offer for free?
Hospitals now order their mouth caps for the higher market price of five euros per fifty masks. The Mouthmask Factory recently received orders from the Rijnstate hospital in Arnhem and the VUmc in Amsterdam.
Both Hudepohl van Lemoine and Bakker and Blom van de Mondmaskerfabriek argue that the caps that quickly become obsolete at the ministry should be offered free of charge to Dutch healthcare institutions. “They’ll be destroyed anyway,” Hudepohl says.
But the ministry does not do that, because distributing for free or selling below market price would influence the market and affect Dutch suppliers.
Several hospitals have announced that they are not allowed to order face masks from LCH, because it has been agreed nationally that this is only allowed if delivery via regular partners is no longer possible.
Recharge
The ministry denies that it sells mouth caps for the amount of 64 cents per box, but is not specific about this. “In order not to jeopardize the sales position of Bureau LCH, no statements are made about the sales prices that are used,” the ministry said in a written response. “The personal protective equipment is sold at current market prices.”
According to Fleur Bakker of the Mouthmask Factory, selling caps that have expired is not necessary at all. “The middle layer of a surgical mouth mask is a static layer, which loses its static energy over time. Then the cap is expired. But with an ionizing rod, that layer can be recharged relatively easily.”
It has already submitted this technique to the ministry. That acknowledges that the technique works, but says that, for example, the elastics can also slacken.
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