Faculty, researchers and staff at UWM donated essential personal protective equipment (PPE) in hopes that the additional equipment will provide health care workers more necessary tools to fight COVID-19 over six days at the end of March.
UWM Police and University Safety and Assurances were in charge of collecting the items the UWM community could donate for PPE, including over 30,000 gloves, 345 N95 masks, nine hazmat suits and several other useful items.
Local Milwaukee County hospitals will receive the needed PPE during a shortage of supplies to fight this latest pandemic once the Milwaukee County Unified Emergency Operations Center distributes them along with those provided by others.
The supplies were given to the Milwaukee County Unified Emergency Operations Center on April 1.
PPE like the gear donated by UWM is necessary in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 and in protecting health care workers on the frontlines. Doctors, nurses and EMS personnel need these items to do their jobs.
While donations were not tracked to see which items were donated by who in which department, Switlala said the donation program was an impressive effort by the university as a whole.
The only way UWM could donate this much PPE was through a community effort.
“Without them, this wouldn’t be possible,” said UWM Police Lt. Brin Switala, thanking those who donated.