Since the beginning of March, a small team of workers at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has been providing hundreds of 3D-printed face shields for our frontline caregivers.
The effort began when a machine shop engineering tech approached Joe Murphy, head of innovation at PNSY, with an open-source design for 3D-printed face shields that he had seen online. Joe, husband to YH cardiac rehab nurse Sarah Murphy, then reached out to York Hospital and offered to send us a prototype for review. It was perfect!
However, face shields aren’t the only PPE items the PNSY team has been making for us! Collaborating with Joel Nicolo, nursing director for the Cardiac Cath Lab, ICU and Interventional Radiology, Joe and PNSY designed and created an “intubation box” to shield caregivers when intubating patients. They sent a prototype and, after some minor adjustments based on caregiver feedback, the Shipyard team provided four additional boxes. Always innovating, they then made three smaller specialized versions for use in the Surgery Center.
But that’s not all! Plans for additional PPE are in the works, including a protective booth for doing stand-up/walk-through COVID-19 tests; reusable testing swabs that can be sterilized for repeated use; a plexiglass barrier to protect administrative staff and patients during check-in; and N95 respirators, pending approvals from the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
And, if all this effort to ensure our frontline providers’ safety wasn’t enough, the folks at Naval Shipyard Portsmouth Homes are also satisfying their stomachs! On Thursday, they donated pizza for the caregivers in the COVID tent and ED.
Thank you, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Naval Shipyard Portsmouth Homes, for your generous donations. Your kindness warms our hearts and our bellies and keeps us smiling behind those protective shields.
If you would like to support to York Hospital’s COVID-19 efforts, we are gratefully accepting donations to our Caring for All Fund as well as supplies or other items. Visit www.yorkhospital.com/give.
