Leave it to locals to answer the call in an emergency—in this case, for personal protection equipment (PPE) that’s in short supply among healthcare professionals and the general population.

As the fight against COVID-19 continues, many healthcare professionals have found themselves without the proper gear required to be safe while caring for infected persons. Authorities around the world have even disagreed about what to prescribe to the general public, but the current prevailing recommendation is now to go ahead and wear a mask.

The World Health Organization says that if you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you’re taking care of a person with COVID-19. Their website advises, “Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.”1

Earlier in April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended people wear nonsurgical cloth face coverings when they go out in public during the COVID-19 pandemic.2

Amidst the confusion, the public has seemed to draw their own conclusions, and for weeks now regular citizens have been buying up masks, filters, and N95 respirators (which filter 95 percent of particles from the air), leaving those in essential healthcare-related roles in the lurch.

As governments began to lobby for PPE from suppliers around the world, the local community had already recognized the need and sprung into action. Those with sewing skills have begun to sew cloth masks. Meanwhile, those with 3D printers have begun to produce ear guards which reduce pressure on the ears caused by the elastic straps on masks. And those with coordination skills are bringing in all these locally made supplies to the areas of highest need.

Angela Stefaniuk is a nurse at St. Boniface Hospital who lives in St. Adolphe. Fortunately, she has access to all the masks and eyewear needed for her to feel safe and protected.

A few weeks ago, friends and family found out about the discomfort many nurses were feeling at the tops of their ears when wearing protective gear for long shifts. They sprung into action and now Stefaniuk delivers contributions of supplies to her co-workers and other frontline healthcare workers.

“We wear PPE for the whole shift now, which has been an adjustment but important in the fight against the COVID virus,” says Stefaniuk. “After a few hours it begins to hurt around our ears and we work eight, 12, and sometimes 16 hours. The 3D ear guards make a big difference. 3D ear guards are pieces of plastic that go behind our head that you can hook the mask elastics onto instead of around your ears. Friends and family know I am a nurse, so they bring me the guards people give them and I get them to the frontlines. Other people have brought in similar things, such as headbands with buttons and crochet guards with buttons. It is very heart-warming that people want to help in whichever way they can.”

There are primarily two different design types of ear guards being designed, one with a softer rubbery texture and one with stiffer plastic. Both are a type of band that relieve pressure on the top of the ears by attaching a facemask’s elastic and reaching around the back of the head to provide support. The rubbery one takes about three times longer to print than the harder plastic one.

“A group of us heard there was a need for 20,000 ear guards requested by the WRHA, for paramedics, healthcare professionals,” says Waldner, a 3D printing enthusiastic from Landmark. “There’s a dropoff site and a list of official specifications, so I decided to try and help.”

At-home 3D printing is a relatively new hobby that uses a computer programmed with a 3D design to move a spool of plastic pressed through a high-heat nozzle. The nozzle moves around a platform, pushing out layer after layer until an object is created.

It can sometimes be finicky to find supplies and execute successful designs to proper specifications. Many hobbyists join online groups to find more information on how to improve their 3D printouts.

As with so many new initiatives these days, there is a learning curve for those involved and this is a new endeavour for many at-home 3D printers. The specifications of the printed items requested by different authorities change often, so it’s hard to stay up to the minute on what type of plastic is required and what pieces are needed.

Waldner notes that there is less demand in Manitoba right now compared to Ontario.

Eveline Van Bergen is a seamstress from Landmark who runs an Etsy shop selling children’s clothing with natural fabrics. She’s also a nurse who recently stepped away from her job to help her son recover from a traumatic brain injury, so she knows how important PPE is.

When Van Bergen heard about the growing need for surgical-style masks, she began to make some and added the design to her online store. Soon she was overwhelmed with orders and began receiving urgent messages from healthcare professionals working in other cities being overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases.

“One lady who bought clothes from me before contacted me and asked me to make some masks, so I made some and posted them in my shop because nobody’s buying clothes from me anyway,” says Van Bergen. “I sold about 100 in a few hours, so I had to take them down from my shop; there were just so many looking for masks. I decided to connect with the local need and give them away for free instead of profiting from it. I was giving away two free masks to anyone in our area who wanted one.”

Van Bergen produces about 30 masks per day with help from her family, who help cut out the right fabric pieces for the pattern. She has had requests from both near and far, including New York and New Jersey.

“They found me through my Etsy shop,” Van Bergen adds. “I started receiving messages from New York, New Jersey, and they sounded very distressed, to the point of being rude, but you have to understand what kind of stress these people are under. In the New York area, where there’s lots of COVID and there are no protective supplies. It’s sad, listening to them talk. Every time I get a message, it kind of breaks your heart. It sounds so urgent. They send me a message that sounds panicked, and I will send them a free mask. The only thing I ask people is they limit it to two free masks per family.”

No one had to teach Van Bergen how to make a mask. She designed her own based on a style her mother, also a nurse, used to wear in the 1960s, before everything became disposable.

After a few weeks of making masks, it’s getting harder to find the right supplies, but as people in the community have found out what she’s doing, donations of supplies have arrived right when she needs them most.

“Everyone’s kind of coming together,” she says. “I’ve had people donate supplies. I use high thread count cotton, which is a tight weave, so it’s the best kind of material to use. But I started to run out, so I contacted the manager of IKEA Winnipeg and they donated a large quantity of bedsheets. There is a worldwide shortage on elastic, it seems, so someone anonymously donated a 300-metre roll of elastic. It was just suddenly there on my doorstep.”

In return, Van Bergen says she has received some gifts, like pizza and wine, which makes her feel appreciated.

Van Bergen has also had requests to design fabric surgical headcaps for some local nurses, fabric headbands to keep hair back from the face, and headbands with buttons near the ears that can suspend the elastics from the face masks instead of the full weight of the mask bearing down on the top of the ears.