KUALA LUMPUR: Ang Tee Chian has been working with his team to design and produce face shields for hospitals.
As a technical director at Petaling Jaya-based Expedio Design, Ang and his team started working on the design in the first week of the Movement Control Order.
“We found some designs that doctors have been using for some time online, so it took us only a day to figure out how we could incorporate those designs with the materials we have in hand.
“We even consulted a doctor from Hospital Kuala Lumpur. When we got the green light, we immediately got to work,” said Ang, adding that his team produced 110 face shields in the first batch.
About 80 per cent of the face shields were made at the home of his colleague, Ong Qiao Yuan, in Serdang.
Ong’s parents are well-known shoemakers in the area. Using their expertise, the Ongs churned out 500 face shields over the weekend.
The finished product has been distributed to Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan, which received 210 pieces, Hospital Selayang (60), Serdang Hospital (200) and Sungai Buloh Hospital (100).
“For now, we only send these shields to hospitals when requests come in. We will get someone living near the hospitals to deliver them,” Ang said.
He said his company was also building 50 intubation boxes for hospitals.
In Kelantan, a team of lecturers and students from the Faculty of Creative Technology and Heritage in Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) has been making full Personal Protection Equipment suits.
Led by lecturer Mohd Hilmi Harun, the team sat down with Malaysian Red Crescent Society medical officer Dr Mohd Zurairie Mohd Zubir and its representatives to discuss the lack of PPE at the hospital on the seventh day of the MCO.
“We were told that the hospital has raw materials but not enough manpower to make the PPE. With a few samples from society, we set to work on the same day,” he said.
Besides 15 volunteers from the faculty, Hilmi’s team is also working closely with the prison authorities in Pengkalan Chepa.
“The inmates at the correctional facility have made 1,200 pieces of head covers,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lee Ann and her friends, Sophia Quek and Chan Woei Loon, have been busy collecting funds to purchase medical supplies for the staff at Selayang Hospital.
Their effort saw them collecting more than RM40,000, which was used to purchase 1,000 pieces of isolation gowns, 280 pieces of protection gowns, 300 face shields, 1,000 pairs of disposable shoe covers, 2,000 sheets of disposable aprons, 4,000 pieces of hair nets and one unit of Powered Air-Purifier.
An ex-journalist with a local Chinese daily, Lee has been devoting her time doing charity work with a few non-governmental organisations, mainly focusing on human rights and providing support to underprivileged families and students.
“During this pandemic, medical staff are our brave frontliners and the strongest defenders of our nation. My friends and I are doing our best to support these heroes the best we can,” she said.