{"id":26392,"date":"2020-04-16T15:24:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26392"},"modified":"2020-04-16T15:24:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:24:21","slug":"response-to-southlakes-ppe-drive-has-been-wonderful-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/response-to-southlakes-ppe-drive-has-been-wonderful-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"Response to Southlake\u2019s PPE drive has been “wonderful”: Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents\nacross northern York Region and South Simcoe have come together in various ways\nto say thank you to the healthcare workers on the frontlines of this global\nfight, and they continue to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southlake Regional Health Centre sounded the call last\nmonth asking individuals and businesses large and small to help secure and\ndonate personal protective equipment (PPEs) to the people who need them the\nmost, but which have proven in recent weeks to be in increasingly short supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a call that the community has readily answered,\naccording to Susan Mullin, President & CEO of the Southlake Regional Health\nCentre Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have had an awesome response from the community on\nthe PPE drive,\u201d says Ms. Mullin. \u201cPeople from nail salons to car production\nlines have donated needed PPEs, in particular the masks \u2013 and it continues to\nbe the masks that are of greatest concern, but we have had generous gifts.\nWe\u2019ve had more than 5,000 gloves that are on our list of PPE to be donated,\nthere\u2019s well over 12,500 medical and surgical masks, and it probably exceeds\nthat, but we haven\u2019t had a count of everything yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat has been nice about that is we have had people\ncalling saying, \u2018I think you can find this through a connection of mine, tell\nme exactly what you need.\u2019 People calling and reaching out has been one of the\nmost moving things about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the significant community response, the need for\nall PPEs at Southlake continues, particularly the N95 masks which were, last\nweek, at the heart of a trade dispute between the governments of Canada and the\nUnited States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLots of businesses have reached out and the business\ncommunity has been able to help us on the PPE drive,\u201d Ms. Mullin continues. \u201cWe\nhave had donations from Seneca College\u2019s labs, which have donated products;\nthat has been really helpful and it continues to be a priority. While the\ngovernment is stepping up [with] the news that 3M will be allowed to export to\nCanada some of the N95 masks, which are the ones that are in particular short\nsupply, it is good news they\u2019re coming to hospitals but until they are on my\nloading dock, I am not confident. We need to be able to see it to believe it is\ngoing to be available for our staff when they need it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southlake continues to look at the myriad donations of\nPPE that have rolled in so far. Much of what has been contributed is different\nfrom the equipment hospital staff used before the start of the pandemic.\nMedical staff, for example, are usually fitted for a particular size of mask,\nand, as such, strict protocols are in place to make sure items donated meet\nhospital standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to do a lot of work to make sure that the\ndonated masks meet the requirements and they are all ready and part of our\ncontinency plan for us going forward,\u201d said Ms. Mullin. \u201cWe continue to\nencourage people who donate masks, in particular, we would be delighted to\nreceive them. There are protocols in place and between our procurement team and\nalso our instruction control team\u2026 they are reviewing all of the products that\nare brought in that are not part of our usual inventory and making sure they\nmeet standards, either that they have authentication that we can verify and we\nalso have to assess them for fit on faces as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of PPEs, there are other items members of the\npublic can donate to make the fight a bit easier on our frontline healthcare\nworkers, including hand lotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is really tough for people who are washing their\nhands dozens of times a day, so even little hotel-size bottles of hand lotion\nthat are unopened are the kinds of things we\u2019re making available to our staff\non an ongoing basis,\u201d says Ms. Mullin. \u201cWe continue to look for small,\npersonal-sized bottles of hand sanitizer so nurses and other staff can use that\nat home to keep themselves and their families safe before they come back to the\noffice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The community\u2019s response to Southlake\u2019s call for monetary\ndonations has also been successful so far, although needs continue to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Thursday of last week, nearly 630 individual donors\nhad answered the call, helping Southlake raise close to $1.5 million of their $3.5\nmillion in identified needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have funded one-and-a-half of the portable isolation\ntents that are being delivered this week, we have a few ventilators that have\nbeen fully funded, but there is another eight that need to be funded,\u201d says Ms.\nMullin. \u201cWe are also purchasing PPE where we can find it on the market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on current needs and ways you can help, visit southlake.ca\/foundation and southlake.ca\/foundation\/donateCOVID-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents across northern York Region and South Simcoe have come together in various ways to say thank you to the healthcare workers on the frontlines of this global fight, and they continue to do so. Southlake Regional Health Centre sounded the call last month asking individuals and businesses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6RG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 11:53:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}