Tag: Medical Masks

W.Va.’s Nursing Homes, Long-Term Facilities Running Low On Protective Gear, Group Warns

A trade group that represents West Virginia’s nursing homes and assisted living communities is raising the alarm that the state’s more than 20,000 healthcare workers that work in long-term care facilities may soon run out of personal protective equipment like masks, gloves and gowns. 

In a Friday press release, the West Virginia Health Care Association said there are nearly 12,000 people in long-term care facilities, like nursing homes and assisted living facilities across the Mountain State. As the pandemic continues, essential protective gear is becoming harder to find in West Virginia and nationwide. 

“We’re starting to see a lot of the supply chains dry up where the facilities and health care providers on the front lines are having difficulty getting new personal protective equipment or PPE,” said West Virginia Health Care Association CEO Martin Wright.

In many states, including West Virginia, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been ground zero for COVID-19 outbreaks. Morgantown’s Sundale Nursing Home reports 10 staff, three contractors and 23 patients have contracted the virus. Three patients have died. 

Wright praised the response from both citizenswho are donating homemade masks and of the West Virginia National Guard, which is trying to find innovative ways to make and reuse PPE. 

“It’s absolutely helpful, and there’s been a tremendous outpouring from communities that have gone to individual facilities and nursing homes and assisted livings and made homemade masks, and it’s heartwarming to see and it definitely has an impact,” he said. “But the bigger issue is there’s greater needs out there statewide that as this continues to go on, in terms of a crisis, we’re going to have to meet those needs.”

 

Gowns and gloves, for example, are essential equipment in short supply. Wright stressed getting more protective gear is essential to protecting both healthcare workers and residents. 

Last week, the Associated Press reported congressional records from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform showed big gaps in the amount of PPE West Virginia requested and what it obtained from the federal government.

W.Va. Universities Use 3D Printers To Make Face Shields, Masks

 

At least two universities in the Mountain State are using 3D printing technology to make much-needed personal protective gear for first responders and healthcare professionals on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. 

 

Labs at both Shepherd University in the Eastern Panhandle and Marshall University located in Huntington are printing N95 masks and shields that are then being distributed by the West Virginia National Guard, according to press releases from both institutions. 

Shepherd University’s Fine Arts, Science, Technology, Engineering, Educational Resource lab, or FASTEnER,is producing N95 masks with the help from more than 30 3D printers. The printers were loaned by Jefferson and Berkeley County Schools and various departments on Shepherd’s campus.

An N95 mask is a type of respirator that removes particulates from the air through a filter.

The masks will be distributed statewide by the West Virginia National Guard to first responders and medical professionals. Shepherd’s lab is working with the Guard to develop a prototype reusable N95 mask that can be made on 3D printers.

Last month, the lab began 3D printing face shields that have been distributed locally to fire and police departments, emergency management agencies, and medical professionals in Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan Counties. 

As of April 1, more than 250 face shields have been distributed locally. 

Kay Dartt, the lab’s 3D fabrication manager, has been organizing the project. She said in a news release they’ll continue to make face shields and N95 masks as long as there’s a need and they have the materials to make them. 

Additionally, Marshall University’s Robert C. Byrd Institute has been 3D printing face shields and N95 masks and shipping the devices to the West Virginia National Guard in Charleston.

Technicians in Charleston and Huntington are manufacturing the devices using RCBI’s 3D printers and laser cutting technology, including one of the largest 3D printers in the state, according to a press release from Marshall.

The release said N95 masks filter at least 95 percent of particles as small as 0.3 microns in size.

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