Help Our Hospital

#HelpOurHospital

Many thanks to all people in healthcare

Many thanks for our supporters and donors who helped us to provide some for healthcare people during the first COVID19 wave in the United Kingdom.

Key Facts

422 shields Donated for free

£785 Fundraised

276 miles driven on deliveries


Delivered in Greated London area

5 hospitals

2 GP practices

1 community support

From mid-March till the end of June 2020

From our home office in Ealing

We have achieved our goal and we believe that healthcare is being supplied from standard resourcing. Therefore we don't produce more face shields.

The Story

I am a maker and hacker. By occupancy I'm an IT expert on business analytics and business intelligence but also I like creating things, finding new purposes for things and make them better or fix them. In the extraordinary situation of COVID19 I came across worldwide initiative of makers to help healthcare people with equipment which is missing in critical services.

With my friends from the London Hackspace I started testing face shields designs which were already distributed in Slovak Republic, Czech Republic or designs from other makers. But during next days the lockdown was imposed and we couldn't use hackspace premises to produce shields anymore. However with my wife Danica we have found the way how to continue on producing face shields from our home! Danica cut visors, that transparent A4 PVC part with kitchen scissors and I have assembled face the shields in my "home-maker-office-lab". The delivery of the Sponge Joe was really amazing experience when people in hospitals or healthcare appreciated our donated shields.

The inspiration for our initiative came from Slovakia and Czech Republic where people successfully produced and distributed face shields into hospitals and there was very high demand for it. I selected the design best fit for our conditions from four types and we started producing shields and distributing in the London area. The idea how to manage this whole project came from guys in Slovakia https://pomoznemocnici.sk .

I have found out, that initial weeks in March/April 2020 of pandemic were critical for the healthcare service. Therefore HELPING FAST was more important than providing a longer-time manufacturing high engineering approach such as shield frames produced with the 3D printing. I decided to make a simple face shield "Sponge Joe", because of its assembling simplicity having holding part on the head is based on the glued sponge/foam. I believed when the situation is better later, the 3D printing or injection molding and more engineering approach would come into place to produce thousands of necessary equipment and keep safe our healthcare people.

Please mind that Sponge Joe doesn't replace the face shields by standard producers, but we did my best to help as a NON-PROFIT VOLUNTEERS in the place where the gap occurs during the first COVID19 wave in the United Kingdom.

For more information, please contact via admin@helpourhospital.uk

Sponge Joe - The First and Simple Face Shield

Updates

1/04/2020: Producing 80 foam shields Sponge Joe for GP practice. Material has been delivered today. Time 18:00: The first 30 Shields done!

3/04/2020: Delivered the first 60 shields Sponge Joe to be used by front-line workers such as GP, care homes and pharmacies.

12/04/202: Delivered 100 shields Sponge Joe to Queens Hospital in Romford

17/04/202: Delivered 34 shields Sponge Joe to St Thomas Hospital

17/04/202: Delivered 20 shields Sponge Joe to Northwick Park Hospital

20/04/2020: Delivered 50 face shields to King's College Hospital Denmark Hill

24/04/2020: Delivered 60 Sponge Joe and 6 Prusa shields to Clayponds Hospital. 10 Shields delivered to Dagenham community support.

25/04/202: Delivered 30 shields Sponge Joe to Northwick Park Hospital

06/05/2020: Delivered 28 Sponge Joe and 3 Prusa shields to Watermeadow GP practice Chesham

01/06/2020 The last delivery to Northwick Park Hospital. 21 Sponge Joe face shields have been working there :)

sponge joe Face Shield


An essential piece of protective equipment. Provides a barrier against harmful substances and particles.


Producing Sponge Joe face shield

For more information, please contact via admin@helpourhospital.uk