A GROUP of about 500 volunteers across Sarawak have banded together with one aim in mind – to help in any way possible the healthcare workers in the state in their fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The volunteers represent all sections of the society from engineers to housewives, pensioners, students and seamstresses – anyone who is deft with their hands – to fabricate personal-protective equipment (PPE) for the front-liners.

These include N95-rated face masks, disposable face shields, medical gowns, reusable PPEs and even develop the more technically challenging emergency last-resort medical equipment like ventilators.

The raw materials for the face shields – transparent plastic sheets, elastic bands, double-sided tapes, sponges – are delivered to the volunteers’ house and similarly collected when they are finished.

One of the volunteers, Kenneth Chai, said the group, which goes by the hashtag #jagasamadirik (look after ourselves), had just completed making 10,000 disposable face shields for the Sarawak General Hospital in Kuching.

Chai said the shields, all handmade, were put together by some 100 people in their homes in Kuching and Kota Samarahan.

They have delivered 8,000 pieces of the face shields to SGH to date.

The group hoped to expand to other towns like Sibu, Bintulu and Miri and they are looking for people with 3D printers, and also looking for 3D modellers, electronics, computer engineers, tailors, or “anyone who wants to help” to get involved as volunteers.

Chai, who is also a member of a technical online group of a global movement called the open air project, said the N95-rated face masks are undergoing tests at the moment.

He hoped the tests could be done quickly as they needed to make the tweaks before delivering them.

The mask was designed by a European member who shared it for common use.

Chai earlier said the current request from SGH now is for face masks with filters.

A prototype of the ventilator, designed by another European member of the group and reportedly now used in Italian hospitals handling the Covid-19 pandemic there, is undergoing clinical trial at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), Chai said.

State Housing and Local Government Minister Dr Sim Kui Hian paid tribute to the volunteers in a posting on his Facebook three days ago.

Dr Sim said he was “very proud of the generosity, ingenuity and talent of Sarawakians from every corner of Sarawak, stepping up and stepping forward to help Sarawak in time of crisis like Covid-19 pandemic”.

He also posted of his visit to digital economy hub that had allocated more than 20 printers to make face shields.

He said even in the jungles of Borneo, a state like Sarawak could produce up to 300 face shields a day.

Sim said he has checked with “my medical colleagues” and they can be used.

“Thank you very much for helping Sarawak’s war with Covid-19. Truly the spirit of Sarawakian for Sarawak.”

As at yesterday, Malaysia has 3,483 cases with a death toll of 57.

Among the four who had died yesterday was a 56-year-old man from Kg Demak Baru, raising Sarawak’s Covid-19 death toll to 10. – April 5, 2020.