HIGH schools and living rooms have all become PPE factories as communities around Scotland rally to help frontline workers.
Concern over the urgent need for the lifesaving supplies has swept the country over the past three weeks, with sewing machines and plastic printers being repurposed from hobby kits and teaching tools as teams of people work to help equip medics and more with the scrubs and masks they need to stay safe as the search for a coronavirus vaccine continues.
They include individual volunteers and larger groups like NHS Scotland – For the Love of Scrubs, which was set up by mother and daughter Mirka and Maja Jankowska, of Kirkcaldy outfitter Mirka Bridal Couture, in response to “a shortage of scrubs in the NHS”.
They teamed up with Clare Boyle of local business the Kind Earth Cro-Op and Holly Baxter-Weir of Glasgow’s Fabric Bazaar to create an initiative with more than 1200 volunteers, also starting a GoFundMe page which has raised £36,400 for “fabric and sewing supplies needed to construct brand new scrubs and dispatch to hospitals”.
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So far, that’s allowed for the purchase of 150 rolls of material – enough, according to Maja, to create 150 sets of scrubs.
Their efforts are backed by Scottish Opera, whose wardrobe department has joined the effort to manufacture the ward uniforms for hospitals, clinics and other healthcare settings.
Most of the team is working from home, though a small number continue at the company’s Glasgow premises to prepare the fabric for sewing. Setting out their involvement earlier this month, team leader Lorna Price said: “We are wearing gloves while we are cutting and overlocking the sets, they are then Ozoned in our cabinet so that the sets are sent out ‘safe’ to our own staff working from home.’’
In Fort William, Lochaber High staff have been using their Ultimaker printing kit to create face shields for medical staff.
That started after Stephen Stewart, faculty head of digital technologies, as approached by a consultant at the local Belford Hospital.
Design and tech staff at St Luke’s High School in East Renfrewshire appealed for donations of acrylic sheets to support production of the items there, with nearby Mearns Castle, Barrhead and Eastwood high schools also taking up the PPE challenge.
And Glasgow tailor Thomas Rae has run up hundreds of fabric masks from off-cuts donated by members of the public. He said: “I would love to give something back.”
“This is a time for us to unite.”
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