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Miami donates protective gear to area health care facilities

By Susan Meikle, university news and communications

ppe-boxes-on-desk

PPE stored in Roudebush Hall prior to sending to hospitals (photo by Jeff Johnson).

Area health care workers benefitted from donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) collected across Miami University’s Oxford and Regionals campuses last week.

As Miami faculty and staff closed down campus laboratory facilities in preparation for Gov. Mike DeWine’s (Miami ‘69) stay-at-home order last week, unused protective gear was collected for donation to health care workers.

Most of the items were sent to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, UC Health, the Butler County Board of Health, Mercy Health-Fairfield and the Atrium Medical Center.

Rick Page, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, led a departmentwide collection of supplies from research labs and teaching labs. The department donated: 

  • More than 125,000 gloves and 750 goggles to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and UC Health.

The Miami University police department donated items including:

  • 10 boxes of gloves (250 per box).
  • 196 N95 respirators.

hamilton-police-tweetDennis Tobin, associate professor of art, said Miami’s ceramics studio commonly uses N95 respirators as they mix their own clay and glazes from raw materials. He donated: 

  • 120 N95 respirators to Oxford’s McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital/TriHealth.

Mercy Health and Atrium Medical Center contacted Miami University Regionals about the availability of PPE to spare, said Cathy Bishop-Clark, Regionals dean. Laboratory coordinators collected supplies, and Perry Richardson, senior director of media and community relations, delivered a car full of items to each facility.  

The Regionals also collected cleaning and sanitizing supplies (wipes, paper towels, tissues) to donate to the Hamilton police department.

Jeff Johnson, director of environmental health and safety, collected items from the animal care facility and departments across the Oxford campus, including anthropology, biology, kinesiology and health, psychology and chemical, paper and biomedical engineering.

“We had about four full pickup truck loads of materials,” Johnson said. He and University Fire Marshall Rick Dusha picked up the items which were then centrally stored by Robin Parker, general counsel for Miami, until they were donated.

Jim Oris, vice president for research and innovation, helped coordinate the campuswide collection of PPE. He extended his thanks to everyone involved with this effort. 

"I am proud to work for a place like this. The campus is beautiful, but the people make it special," he said.

A list provided by Oris' office for additional items donated includes:ppe-packed-in-lab

PPE collected from the department of chemistry and biochemistry for donation (photo by Rick Page).

  • 790 boxes of gloves (80,000 pairs).
  • 3,130 surgical masks.
  • 1,100 surgical caps.
  • 782 goggles.
  • 355 shoe covers.
  • 216 N95 respirators.
  • 200 surgical gowns.