Hospital staff produced isolation stretchers from waste materials

Seven technical staff working in a hospital in the eastern province of Erzurum produced a stretcher made up entirely of waste materials for use in the fight with the COVID-19 outbreak.

Technicians aim to prevent the transmission of the virus to the people around, especially healthcare workers, with the "closed isolation stretcher" they produced.

The technical unit responsible for Erzurum Regional Training and Research Hospital, which is used as a quarantine hospital due to the coronavirus pandemic, decided to carry out a project to transfer patients under isolation conditions.

The team, which used old incubators, veterinary gloves, transparent tarps, iron profiles, metal materials, seat belts and PVC pipes in the workshop of the hospital, produced the prototype of the stretcher in approximately 16 hours.

The stretcher will prevent the virus from spreading to the surrounding people even if the patient coughs and sneezes.

The stretcher will be completed by installing the ventilation apparatus.

Yalçın Temel, the leader of the group consisting of a carpenter, a welder, a blacksmith, an upholsterer and a metalist working in the technical unit of the hospital, said that the patient will be fully isolated in transfer with this stretcher.

"The stretcher we made weighs 20 kilograms, now we will work to make it lighter," Temel said.

Technical unit manager Mehmet Sadık Conclusion stated that they designed the stretcher to give an idea to those who want to work on this subject and that they will develop their projects in the future.

Turkey,