General practices are in need of scrubs to stop the spread of germs from work to home and back so volunteers rose to the call. Photo / Luis Melendez - Unsplash
General practices are in need of scrubs to stop the spread of germs from work to home and back so volunteers rose to the call. Photo / Luis Melendez - Unsplash
General practices throughout Hawke's Bay need scrubs - and the region's sewing whizzes have come to the rescue.
Staff want the cover-all scrubs to help prevent the spread of germs between work and home but hospitals have none to spare, stock online is dropping and prices are as high as $148 for a pair, so they needed another way to get them quickly.
Health Hawke's Bay commercial lead Sheldon Reddie got in touch with the manager of the local Spotlight store who put him in contact with the national sales manager - and now 4000 metres of polycotton fabric in shades of green and blue is on its way to Hawke's Bay.
A local patchworking and quilting group were approached for the sewing but with 700 pairs of scrubs required, more volunteers were needed.
Nadine Rees Gaunt, whose husband is a GPshared the call for sewers on the Facebook page of her organisation Re-Source.
She received offers for help as far as Auckland and Australia.
Taradale GP Penny Henley provided a scrubs pattern and the material has been sent to a garment factory in Waipawa, which will cut it when it arrives at the end of the week.
Health Hawke's Bay has limited the number of people involved in the supply chain to manage health and safety considerations.
General practices are in need of scrubs to stop the spread of germs from work to home and back so volunteers rose to the call. Photo / Luis Melendez - Unsplash
"We have had an awesome response from people in the community offering to help us sew the scrubs," Health Hawke's Bay chief executive Wayne Woolrich said.
"This shows just how supportive our community is. We aren't able to individually get back to all of the people who offered, so through Hawke's Bay Today, I would like to take the opportunity to sincerely thank you."
They are looking at having 15 sewers either within the Waipawa factory or in the community who will complete the project in about a week and a half.
"We have to balance the time it will take to make them, against managing the number of people involved in the supply chain," he said.
Staff at general practices don't usually wear scrubs but want tos o they do not spread the infection from work to home and back. "Providing scrubs [coveralls] to clinical staff in general practice would lessen the risk of them taking the virus home to their family bubble after a day at work," Woolrich said.
GP Dr Kerryn Lum said: "We feel pretty vulnerable. We are here on the front line and we are fighting to get enough protective equipment in the way of masks and gloves as it is, but we are right at the back of the queue when it comes to getting scrubs.
"If we pick up the virus on our clothes and we go home there is every potential to carry the virus home to family," she said.
The support from the community has given GPs "the warm fuzzies", she said.
"We hear about the hospitals and intensive care, but you don't hear too much about the people in the community still trying to do their normal job. We are just as vulnerable, and we are right on the front line."
She also said it is a good way for those at home to feel like they are doing something to help.
"I know a lot of people are at home feeling pretty helpless because there's nothing they can do so this is a really neat community thing that they can do," she said.
To avoid bringing anyone else into the loop, Reddie will be bringing any material deliveries to the Waipawa site, any off-site sewers, and to general practices as he has an existing essential services status.
Lum said all staff at practices will be wearing the scrubs and ideally need two to three pairs each.
Each practice will be managing how scrubs are hot washed daily after wear but her practice, Tamatea Medical Centre, has installed a washing machine on site.
The scrubs are expected to be sent out in a couple of weeks a Health Hawke's Bay spokeswoman said.
