Staff of St. Michael’s College Enniskillen have been working with Ronan O’Hare, South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) Clinical lead to build protective screens for NHS staff to use in ICU amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to The Impartial Reporter Sean Carlin, Head of Careers at St. Michael’s College said: “I got a call from Dr. O’Hare from the hospital, he had an idea that he found for a protective screen and he was wondering if our Technology and Design department might be able to put the screen together.”

“He sent us his design and I got some of my colleagues, Connor McBarron and Adrian McGee in the Technology and Design department to take a look at it and we decided that the best way forward was to bring in an ex-colleague, Terry McManus who has production experience and has connections in industry that would be able to help us, so that’s basically how it came about,” said Mr. Carlin, adding: “Terry put a lot of work in because the design, like any design, just isn’t straight forward. It looks simple in the diagrams but Terry did an amazing job getting everything together.”

Mr. Carlin explained that the protective screens will be used when the nursing staff are intubating patients or removing intubation when perhaps there could be a gag reflex and the nurses could be contaminated with droplet spray from the patient.

“The whole screen can then be washed down in 70 per cent alcohol, it’s robust enough to do that so it can be reused multiple times,” Mr. Carlin noted. In just a two day turnaround, the team created seven of these screens for the ICU at SWAH. “Dr. O’Hare wanted seven made and then he has since asked Terry to make another eight for Altnagelvin Hospital. We’ve also had contact from Doncaster ICU, they contacted me through a nurse that used to actually work here and they are keen on the design as well,” Mr. Carlin shared. Commenting that the team at St. Michael’s were happy to be able to help the NHS “in some small way”, Mr. Carlin said: “If you are in a position to help in the current climate that we are in, you have to do all you can. I’m just fortunate that I knew people that could get the job done and my role wasn’t any bigger or smaller than that. The real credit has to go to the Technology and Design department and Terry because they were the brains in terms of production but it feels good to have helped out in some small way and I just hope that it gives ICU staff more confidence in doing their work in terms of lessening the chance of picking up infection, that’s all we can hope for at this stage with Covid-19 the way it’s panning out.”

Over at the South West College InnoTech Centre, Idea Centre staff have been using 3D printers to create visors to help nurses in the community supporting acute elderly care who were in dire need of personal protective equipment (PPE). The first batch have now been created and delivered.

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