Coronavirus: Cork company altering personal protective equipment flown from China

A company located in the Cork Gaeltacht has stepped in to alter personal protective equipment (PPE) purchased from China to make it suitable for use.

Sullane Valley Manufacturing, which is based in Baile Mhic Íre (Ballymakeera) near Macroom, has been doing the alteration work after receiving a call to work on the equipment from the HSE last Friday.

A senior staff member from the company visited Cork University Hospital to assess the problem with the PPE before getting the alteration work underway, company director Siobhán Uí Scannláin said.

"They got a lot of jumpsuit-type things. So we took the legs off them and used them as sleeves, because a lot of the sleeves on the garments are too short. We were able to use the legs as sleeves, and they also had elastic at the end, so that was good.... They also wanted to get rid of the zips and use velcro because that's safer," she told An Saol ó Dheas on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.

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Two staff members, Margaret O'Sullivan and Geraldine Cullinane, worked from morning to night across the weekend on the project, and the entire team at the company has been working on it since Monday.

“The most important thing for them is to be able to remove the garment quickly when they’ve finished working with the sick patient, to be able to remove it easily and dispose of it. That’s our aim, to try to make it very simple (for them), but that they have full protection, and that they can remove the garment easily,” Ms Uí Scannláin said.

The material used in the PPE is impenetrable to liquids, and the company is trying to source more similar fabrics to broaden the range of solutions they can offer - however, amid wider shortages, that is proving difficult, Ms Uí Scannláin said.

“That’s the problem we have for the last few weeks, we can’t get our hands on fabric. We’re trying again since this morning to get some. If we could get the material, we could do anything for them.

“We’re working with what’s there now – there are boxes (of the PPE) over in the factory that need to be amended, and we’re happy to do everything we can to make them suitable for use. We understand now what the nurses need for their teams, and when you have that understanding then you can do whatever they need,” she said.

Around 20 per cent of a consignment of PPE delivered from China more than a week ago does not meet HSE requirements, and cannot be distributed to staff dealing with patients infected with Covid-19, it was confirmed by HSE chief executive Paul Reid on Sunday.

Some protective gowns had three-quarter length sleeves which made them unusable to staff, since they do not give full protective cover.