>in times of shortage you could sanitize and sterilize multiple use metal parts in house
Got one word for you: prions. Standard sanitization procedures do not work with them, and if the hospital is not setup to decontaminate for prions, they're unlikely to be able to to it during the crisis.
That is a valid argument for neurological equipment, which has the highest liklihood of infection for prions, but during this pandemic, the likelihood of prion transmission is very remote, probably to the point that it approaches zero, and is probably zero for these valves.
Not all prions need to break skin to be an issue. Kuru, one of the more infamous prions, was transmitted orally [0]. Mad Cow is also thought to be transmitted orally, but research is on going. Though a low possibility, the absolute last thing you need is an even more complicated issue running about during a world-wide triage/crisis. To save live you are trying to eliminate variables, not add to them.
[0] Kuru is not something you want to research whilst eating, fyi. Hell, none of them are.
transmitted orally from eating neural tissues not from prions in saliva that could contaminate medical equipment such as ventilators (that's my understanding at least)
Mad Cow is still active in it's research. We cannot yet rule out that salivary contact is a transmitter of prions, though I agree that it is very unlikely.
Every biology adjacent facility I've ever heard of requires them for at a minimum biohazard waste disposal. I don't know how a hospital could not have enough given that all those plastic one time use parts still get autoclaved after disposal.
In terms of overall mass, sterilizing all those parts should be equivalent to throwing them away. It would require different internal procedures though, I don't think people are used to saving and reusing things. And it would be more labor intensive. And autoclaving might destroy the parts.
Most of which seem like reasonable tradeoffs in an emergency.
Got one word for you: prions. Standard sanitization procedures do not work with them, and if the hospital is not setup to decontaminate for prions, they're unlikely to be able to to it during the crisis.
see https://www.memphis.edu/ehs/pdfs/deconprions.pdf for what it takes.