Homemade fabric face masks are great for public use, with additional precautions like physical distancing and frequent hand washing, to help curb transmission of COVID-19.
But they just aren’t good enough to provide protection for frontline care providers, working with those stricken by novel coronavirus.
There is one homemade item, however, that most health-care workers do need and appreciate: cloth scrub caps.
Diana Sheeler first heard about the need for scrub caps from a nurse at Southlake Regional Health Centre who was working in the COVID-19 unit, and immediately began searching for the perfect pattern.
The nurse sent along several ideas; Sheeler also checked Pinterest. She eventually produced three “prototypes,” based on three different patterns, which she sent to Southlake to be tested.
The caps “were literally ugly prototypes, but they needed them so badly,” Sheeler said, that all three were in use within hours of being sent to the hospital. The consensus was that a cap “with the buttons on the side”, offering a place to hook the elastic loops of a face mask, was the most useful.
“It covers most heads, most of their hair, very flexible,” Sheeler said.
She started production of the caps, using her sewing machine – “I’d never be able to do this by hand!” – and fabric found around the house, from clean sheets to tablecloths, or donated by her neighbours.
One neighbour helped cut out the patterns, a time-consuming job; others have scrounged up materials from closets and cupboards.
“Everything has been donated,” Sheeler said. “We’re using sheets that are in great shape. We’ve had some pretty funky designs. I think it’s kind of neat that we’re ‘re-using’.”
In addition to the caps, she has also started making “scrub bags” – washable cloth garment bags that can be used by health-care workers to transport their medical scrubs, masks, and other gear to and from work, and thrown directly into the laundry to be cleaned, reducing the risk of transmitting the virus to family members at home.
Sheeler has been providing the caps and bags to Southlake, but also to Bradford Valley Care Community, and its long-term care workers.
She has now made more than 100 scrub bags, and nearly 300 scrub caps in her volunteer effort.
The bags are fairly easy, but the caps are a different story. “I can make 10 face masks in the time it takes to make one cap,” Sheeler said.
She has been working 16-hour days to turn out the caps and bags, but shrugs off any praise. The focus, she said, should be on the health-care workers, the nursing home staff, the care providers on the front line.
“Everything that everybody else is doing is so much more,” she said.
And despite the long hours, there is a positive benefit for Sheeler herself.
“It has made me feel a lot more hope just to be able to do something,” she said. “It’s one of those times when it’s hard to sit still."
