A kind-hearted nurse is calling on businesses with protective medical equipment to donate to their local hospitals.
Wendy Nissen, 44, is asking aesthetics clinics, hair, nail and beauty salons, tattooists and similar businesses to donate any spare personal protective equipment (PPE) - such as unopened boxes of gloves, masks, eye wear or aprons - during the coronavirus pandemic.
And Wendy says the response has been overwhelming.
“In just a few hours of sharing the message on Facebook I had over 200 shares and people contacting me to say they have delivered PPE to their local hospitals,” she says.
Wendy, who recently qualified as a nurse at Salford University, has been helping colleagues at Royal Salford Hospital.
“They’ve just not got enough PPE and people in other trusts are waiting for more too,” she says.
“It’s obviously challenging for everyone to be dealing with a virus. If the PPE isn’t there they feel like they’re not being protected or protecting others.
“I know some said they’ve had a big order but I’ve also heard that some have not received anything yet.
“For people that are on wards they are fearful and they want to protect themselves.
“Nurses are doing everything they can to protect themselves, their families and patients.
"I know some are sleeping in separate bedrooms and changing their clothes as soon as they get in and immediately having showers.”
Wendy is asking for people to drop off spare unused PPE at NHS main receptions to help staff.
In a Facebook post she wrote: “There is a massive shortage at this time. Imagine if the 100s businesses in 1 town in 1 day all donated - RESULT
“Help now - Let’s not loose our specialised professionals by letting them become ill while they save lives. It takes years of training to achieve the specialised skills of these medical professionals. These people are precious to us all. Please help my colleagues.
“I am a passionate nurse - our government are not acting as fast as our NHS staff need them to. Some trusts have still not had deliveries. Huge thanks to all that he donated today to your hospitals.”
Wendy says: “You can drop anything off at the main entrance to any hospital.
“Last night I thought I would share a post.
“Some people have got stacks of PPE back in their clinics and shops.
“I found a group with 5,000 tattoists and they shared the post. If you think of all the hair and beauty salons and tattooists just in one town it could make all the difference.”
NHS England is responsible for the distribution of PPE to hospital settings.
Professor Keith Willett, NHS Strategic Incident Director at NHS England, wrote to health bosses last week to explain that “substantial extra deliveries” are being provided to services across the NHS.
“Services across the NHS are urgently being sent stocks of PPE to help them manage cases and potential cases of COVID19 and keep staff safe,” he wrote.
On Thursday 2.6 million face masks and 10,000 hand sanitisers went to trusts in London.
On Friday 150 hospital trusts were sent extra PPE kit.
And over the weekend every other hospital trust was sent a further special delivery of PPE
GP practices, dental practices, community pharmacies, care homes, hospices, and home care providers have also been included.
Prof Willett added: “Securing additional supplies from manufacturers COVID-19 is generating unprecedented global demand on the supply chain, combined with a manufacturing slowdown in affected countries, especially China which manufactures a large amount of PPE.
“Government, NHS Supply Chain, and the NHS are doing everything to work with industry to secure additional supplies and manufacture further PPE.”
