Twelve weeks of PPE stock used in one day as Derry battles to meet huge demand for PPE and hygiene products

Neil Guckian, the Trust’s Director of Finance, said the authority had managed to replenish PPE stocks during the first peak of the pandemic.

However, it’s been a major challenge with global demand for gloves, aprons, masks, visors and gowns rocketing.

Mr. Guckian says that, over the course of the first peak, the use of Type IIR fluid resistant surgical masks increased five-fold.

“We would traditionally use about 2,000 of those masks in a day in the Western Trust area. A few weeks ago that would have increased to 5,000 a day.

"A week ago that was up to 8,000, and, then, in the current week [last Monday to Friday], we are actually at between 50,000 and 70,000 masks in a single week.

“Clearly that would put pressure on any stock-holding. We would generally hold between six and 12 weeks stock of a given item but six to 12 weeks of stock in the current pandemic would be the equivalent of one day’s usage.

“Clearly that puts pressure on our stock-holding but we have managed to avail of regional stocks,” said Mr. Guckian.

An inventory taken by the Western Trust on Friday showed that it had 2,581,774 items of PPE in store.

This included 1,860,171 pairs of gloves, 324,313 aprons, 201,578 Type IIR fluid resistant surgical face masks, 104,080 eye protectors and visors and 45,342 FFP3 respirator masks.

Added to this was a further 49,861 demand managed items including smocks and sanitiser, bringing the total anti-COVID arsenal to 2,631,635 units of PPE and hygiene products.

“We’ve put some stocks in from the NHS supply chain and we have regionally got a pandemic store which, thankfully, we have been able to avail of to top up our local stocks,” said Mr. Guckian.

In addition to regional health service stocks, the Western Trust has also benefited from a huge amount of donations from citizens, community organisations and businesses.

For example, a Derry e-cig liquid maker, which switched its production to hand sanitiser early in the crisis, has now donated thousands of PPE items to the Trust.

Moheet Vij, from Liquid Creations Ltd., said: “We have donated over 3,000 units of PPE in the last week to both the Western Trust - 1,000 surgical masks, 1,000 hand sanitisers and 100 face shields, and to the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service - 500 surgical masks, 500 hand sanitisers and 50 face shields.”

Mr. Vij said that, since switching production from vaping liquid to hand sanitiser, the Newbuildings-based company has given out over 4,000 bottles to local charities, care homes, nursing homes and schools.

“We have also now supplied 500,000 bottles of much needed hand sanitiser to clients such as the Education Authority, Housing Executive, NI Water, Spar, Dunne’s & CEX, to name a few, and the list is growing every day. We have employed around 10 new staff and are enforcing strict social distancing measures, along with health checks on staff each day before starting work,” he said.

The Nerve Centre’s FabLab has also been used to create PPE face shields for workers on the frontline.

“The design and testing for the new face shields was led by Nerve Centre’s Paul McCay and local maker Luke McNeice who came together due to concerns around supply shortages - a fantastic display of local collaboration, innovation and action,” said the organisation.

Nelipak Healthcare Packaging, in Campsie, donated plastic for 3,500 shields at the Magazine Street lab; Your Derry/Pure Derry raised funds for a further 3,500 shields; Amari Plastics helped source material; and volunteers from the Nerve Centre, The Playtrail, FabSocial Shantallow and Aerona Software assembled them.

Mr. Guckian acknowledged the community support the Trust has been receiving.

“Our local population have made many donations of PPE and I want to acknowledge that,” he said, adding that all donations go through a certification process prior to use.

“When we go through all of those, we will be availing of our donations accordingly. I want to thank everyone who has donated to that,” he said.