Nearly 50,000 pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) is being donated to help key workers across the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, courtesy of Newry based recycling company, Re-Gen Waste Ltd.
The company was sourcing PPE for its own essential staff, via its supply chain in China, but on learning from family and friends working in hospitals in the Southern Trust, that stock of vital personal protective equipment was running low, Re-Gen’s management acted immediately to assemble a team to bring home extra PPE for them.
An additional £60,000 order was placed, comprising 24,000 pairs of medical hand gloves, 18,000 disposable surgical masks, 7,200 FFP2 masks and 480 sterile medical protective suits.
These will be delivered directly to frontline staff in Daisy Hill Hospital and Craigavon Area Hospital.
Aidan Doherty, Commercial Director at Re-Gen said: “We were distressed to hear that healthcare workers in our own community were frightened to go to work because they were running out of much needed PPE supplies.
“It was important to us that we did our bit to support the health and wellbeing of these incredible individuals who are putting themselves in harm’s way, to provide the very best care for their patients.
“We approached the Southern Health and Social Care Trust to check if this was the right thing to do, to sort logistics and to approve the specification of the PPE materials we could source, from our supplier.
The flight from Shanghai carrying the essential PPE, touched down at Heathrow Airport on Monday 27th April and the cargo is being road freighted to Re-Gen Waste’s Newry Headquarters, on Friday 1st May.
There, the consignment will be collected by the Southern Trust and distributed to their hospitals.
Mr Doherty continued: “Whilst Re-Gen was not able to help directly on the frontline, we were able to get the team at Re-Gen to do what they do best and source the equipment needed. Anyone who is capable of helping right now, should be helping. We can have a direct impact on the number of lives protected and saved within our community, he said.”
