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Secure service ... Aurora Health Centre staff members (from left) nurse Philippa Henry, GP Ingrid...
Secure service ... Aurora Health Centre staff members (from left) nurse Philippa Henry, GP Ingrid Crawford and nurse Stacey Ellis wear 3-D printed protective face shields that were made in Dunedin. PHOTO: PETER MCINTOSH
Doctors are praising a team of Dunedin residents for offering them an extra level of security during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Aurora Health Centre staff were in desperate need of face masks after the demand soared, following the nation moving into lockdown last week.

Damien van Brandenburg, of Architecture of Van Brandenburg, and his staff recently began using their 3-D printers to make face shields to give to health services, and since putting out the word for others to get on board, production has taken off.

Dr Ingrid Crawford, of Aurora Health Centre, said it had been running an outside clinic in its car park for Covid-19 tests, and it was important staff felt safe during the process.

It received five of the face shields from Mr Brandenburg on Thursday, which meant doctors would feel less at risk while seeing sick patients.

She said it had been important to secure a local and accessible supply, and the style of masks they were given could be sterilised and reused.

"We are ecstatic to receive the masks. It means we can keep doing our jobs."

Mr Brandenburg said since putting out a call a few days ago asking for people who had a 3-D printer and were willing to help to contact him, there had been an influx of 12 workers and printers.

It meant the team went from making 75 masks over the course of last weekend to being able to give away about 1600 yesterday.

Mr van Brandenburg said the masks had been distributed to doctors, dentists and pharmacies across Dunedin, as well as some in Queenstown and Invercargill.

The internal Architecture Van Brandenburg workforce had had to be expanded to help with sterilisation and to manage the influx of orders.

Architecture of Van Brandenburg collaborated with shieldsup.org.nz

molly.houseman@odt.co.nz

Comments

Well done Damien van Brandenburg!

Great to see Van Brandenburg joining in with other Dunedin makers, all connected via the ShieldsUp organisation. Well done to all the Dunedin people involved with this effort.

 

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