Margin Notes: Masks for Hospitals

In the hours before and after performing surgery, Sue Harrington makes masks. A veterinarian at Randolph Animal Hospital, Harrington knows how important proper personal protective equipment (PPE) is for healthcare workers — and how problematic it is that hospitals around the country are already running low during this time of crisis.

The first batch of medical masks made by Canton’s Sue Harrington

Harrington knew how she could help. As the costume designer for the town’s high school and elementary school plays for the past decade or so, Harrington already had hundreds of yards of material on hand. She found a few tutorial videos online and got to work: washing and drying fabric, cutting out fabric squares, ironing on interfacing to stiffen the material, adding a metal strip over the bridge of the nose, stitching in pleats, sewing in the elastic.

Making homemade masks for hospital use is “uncharted territory,” Harrington told me. N95 masks are by far the most effective protective gear for healthcare workers; homemade masks, like the ones Harrington makes, are not nearly as effective. But with supplies running so low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines last week to say that hospitals should consider reusing masks, wearing them all day, using face shields, or, if no other options are available, resorting to bandanas.

“I can safely say these masks are better than that,” Harrington said of the bandanas. “I don’t want to peddle them as a substitute — just trying to get people options who don’t have options.”

Harrington joins what has become an army of volunteers across the country sewing homemade masks, desperate to help and alarmed at news reports of healthcare workers wearing the same masks all day. Three Lincoln siblings started their own grassroots effort drawing more than 3,000 volunteers around the country (find them on Facebook at Masks for Massachusetts), after their father, a surgeon, came home from work and asked them to find a few people to sew masks.

Some businesses are stepping up too, with hopefully many more to come. Massachusetts-based New Balance announced they are developing a prototype for a mask that they hope to produce en masse soon. L.L. Bean created a model with the material from their dog-bed liners that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is currently testing.

Harrington has been testing out her own masks too. Harrington and her colleagues have been using her own homemade masks at work, having rationed and donated the animal hospital’s surgical masks to hospitals. After wearing the mask, Harrington added that flexible metal strip over the bridge of the nose to help the mask better fit the face. She’s made about 20 masks so far, each taking roughly 15 to 20 minutes.

You don’t have to be a sewer or an expert to help. Harrington emphasizes that the project is a team effort: Her neighbor helps cut and iron on the interfacing, a textile made to stiffen fabric; her friend and her daughter cut out metal strips to fit across the bridge of the nose using material from Home Depot.

Harrington has donated the masks to individuals who have reached out — a nurse, a friend who works as a doctor in a nursing home. She’s also donated them to Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton and Massachusetts General Hospital. Wearing the masks at her work is also a bit of a donation — it allows Harrington to donate her official protective gear for hospitals to use.

The biggest thing you could do right now to help is donate any N95s or other official protective gear you may have around the house from some project (my family was surprised to find we had a few down the basement for wood-cutting). Moreover, think about whether you know a business — construction company, tattoo artist shop — that may have a supply of N95 masks. The Farewell director Lulu Wang made a difference by collecting and donating 1,000 masks from people in her Los Angeles community through a drive-by drop-off at her house.

Many local hospitals have drop-offs in place (check out getusppe.org): South Shore Health and ConvenientMD Urgent Care in Weymouth; Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Braintree, Good Samaritan and Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital all need supplies — N95, surgical masks, safety googles, hand sanitizer, gowns, and gloves.

If you’d like to spend your days at home making masks, check out the Everything Canton Facebook page for Harrington’s tutorial or other Facebook pages like Masks4Medicine. JOANN Fabrics and Crafts is giving away free kits to sew masks and hospital gowns. Tufts Medical Center, Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, and Melrose Wakefield Hospital in Wakefield are among those accepting homemade mask donations.

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Posted by Rachael Allen on Apr 3 2020. Filed under Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.