Coronavirus Latest: Jefferson Students Stepping In To Help As Health Care Workers Face Shortages Of Protective Equipment
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As health care workers face critical shortages of protective equipment, some local students have stepped in to help. The students are all studying to become health professionals, so they know just how important these supplies are to the safety of health care workers.
Stories of first responders pleading for personal protective equipment as they treat patients with COVID-19 had a big impact on a group of students preparing to become health professionals.
"Listening to the stories of our mentors, teachers, hearing about the way they have to ration PPE in ways that aren't really safe, it was really important for us to be able to do something to help them," Terry Gao said.
Gao is a fourth-year medical student at Jefferson. She helped organize PPE 2 PHL, a group of volunteers working to secure personal protective equipment for use in Philadelphia-area hospitals.
"We've been reaching out to local businesses and they have been so supportive. Different places like nail salons, tattoo parlors, art schools have been sending us their gloves, gowns, N95s if they have them," Gao said.
They launched a website and saw an uptick in PPE donations.
"Now we've been able to reach a little bit wider of an audience and the donations we get are a little bit larger and maybe from farther away, not immediately in the greater Philadelphia area, so that's been really, really helpful," Gao said.
They've partnered with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health to make sure the supplies are going where they need to go.
"We know that the PPE we get are really getting to those places that we need them and they have the most up-to-date information, more than we could ever have access to and so they're helping us with the distribution," Gao said.
PPE 2 PHL is collecting everything from masks to rubber gloves and hand sanitizers. They're also collecting money for the purchase of the equipment.
On their website, they've posted tutorials for anyone that might be able to sew face masks. You can check that out here.
