SERC answers the call for PPE in virus fight

Aurla McLoughlin, Deputy Head of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at SERC said, “We have all heard the many news reports detailing the severe shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in our hospitals and healthcare settings.

“As you can imagine, we use a lot of this equipment in the College, from rubber gloves in hair and beauty, science and animal care programmes, to plastic aprons in catering and hospitality, to masks in motor vehicle and engineering to high viz vests in construction. Many of these items are required in the fight against Coronavirus and since all our students are online during this unprecedented lockdown period, SERC is coordinating the collection of all the PPE in our facilities which can be passed on to the services that need it most at this time.”

The College is also working with industry specialists to possibly produce PPE. Trevor Breadon, Head of School of Engineering and Computing explained: “In the engineering programmes at SERC we have state of the art equipment which is used for teaching students to industry standards including 3D printers. The engineering team have been working with specialist industry and healthcare contacts to produce PPE in the form of a reusable face mask in which the filter can be replaced. Essentially, this means that one mask can be used many times by an individual working on the front line. We are also hoping to start production of face shields.”

SERC have also been collecting baby monitors that staff and students might have at home which they are no longer using, again, to be passed on to healthcare teams.