By Cecilia Nasmith

Though COVID-19 has filled this past year with unprecedented challenges, it has also brought so many inspiring stories of how people rose to those challenges – one of which the Northumberland Hills Hospital and NHH Foundation have shared.

This example – which sparked many more, the announcement noted – began when Jessica Sears signed on to coordinate a volunteer initiative to create hand-made face masks for the hospital's patients and essential visitors. The initiative flourished locally (thanks to her leadership and her small but mighty team of local sewers), and more than 7,700 masks were turned out in just seven months.

It was early on in the pandemic when it became clear that the use of face coverings would play an imperative role in helping decrease the spread of the virus (something that holds true today as we battle with a second wave). Access to face masks, however, presented a challenge with shortages of personal protective equipment at that time spurring concerns that such materials must be preserved for those on the front-line.

With an aim to ensure Northumberland residents had access to quality masks, the leadership team at NHH saw the need for a supply of them to hand out to those who had reason to be at the hospital under the new restrictions – outpatients requiring chemotherapy and dialysis, inpatients being discharged and essential visitors, for example.

Jessica Sears heard about the need from her husband Tom, who had had a discussion with hospital Chief of Staff Dr. Mukesh Bhargava. An avid and skilled sewer, she volunteered her skills and obtained a sample of blue medical-grade material NHH (the kind typically used to wrap medical equipment during sterilization), which was made available to her to prepare a prototype that could be used to determine the viability of using this material for masks.

Once the material was deemed suitable to repurpose into face masks, the next challenge was finding skilled sewers to work their magic. As a regular patron of Stitch Witch in Cobourg, Jessica persuaded the owner to send out a call through the store's e-mail list and a team of volunteers was formed.

A sold core group of 15 has been at work steadily, with another 50 sewers contributing their efforts since the initiative began. Jessica coordinated all these efforts, with a very fluid process of putting together packages of raw materials that volunteers could fetch from her porch. They would return the finished product, which Jessica packaged into bundles to drop off at NHH – where they were sterilized for distribution.

In the press release, Jessica expressed amazement at the number of people who got behind this important project.

“I was a stranger to most of the volunteer sewers originally, but we all meshed and came together for a good cause,” she said.

“We had no idea the severity of this pandemic would have on our community, but this was one way we could use our skills to try to help. Knowing we could contribute in a useful way was so important, and the camaraderie and friendships that developed in the group are something good that came out during a challenging time.”

The design of the masks was based on specifications from a template developed by the University of Florida, which NHH general surgeon Dr. Kaes Al-Ali discovered while researching face-mask patterns and effectiveness. Throughout the seven months of sewing them up, minor adjustments were made to the original pattern to incorporate feedback from local front-line health-care workers, patients and even the sewers.

In addition to the medical-grade textiles supplied by NHH, two Port Hope businesses stepped in to help source and supply other materials required by the design, which incorporated copper wire for the nose piece supplied by Acme Electric and elastic supplied by Vosburgh Home Decor.

Another partner, through a connection of local consultant Colin Davis, supported the cutting of the fabric in the early stages of the project and donated early-stage strap material.

And of course, the volunteer sewers not only gave their time but purchased the associated materials like thread and special clips needed to avoid puncturing the material with pins.

Regions outside the county eventually took up campaigns of their own, and these spin-off efforts supported communities in Durham, Peterborough County and Kawartha Lakes.

Jessica's original blue-mask initiative officially wrapped up last fall, when she delivered the final batch of her team's 7,700 masks to the hospital, but gratitude for the work of every sewer and contributor to the project will long continue.

With the provincial supply of masks now stable, NHH staff and screeners are now distributing medical-grade masks to all essential visitors and patients. But this work was immensely helpful and reassuring during the pandemic's early days when there was uncertainty instead of stability.

“We did not know how significant it would be when we started out, but having a dependable local supply of consistent and high-quality face masks made a huge difference to the critical preservation of our hospital's medical-grade masks,” Dr. Bhargava commented.

“In addition to offering early protection to patients and visitors at NHH, the production of these masks provided a sense of togetherness and aligned efforts to help mask our community at a very minimal cost to the system.

“We can't thank Jessica, the talented sewers on her team and all involved enough for their generous contributions.”