Prisoners to produce protective equipment for medical frontliners

KUANTAN: The Penor Prison sewing workshop here is racing against time to produce personal protecting equipment (PPE) for medical personnel treating Covid-19 patients.

For the past few days 18 inmates have been measuring, cutting and stitching the material to produce PPEs from 9 am to 5 pm daily.

Penor Prison director Datuk Abu Hasan Hussain said they received 2,000 metres of special material to produce PPE as a unit (from head to toe) would require five metres each.

“Our workshop began producing PPE on Friday (March 27) and we can produce over 20 units daily which then will be sent to the Pahang state secretary office to be distributed to the state health department.

“Currently, the workshop continues its operations on Saturdays and Sundays due to the urgent need for PPE following an increase in the number of Covid-19 positive cases,” he said when met by Bernama here yesterday.

Abu Hasan said several prison staff attended the PPE manufacturing briefing on March 25 to ensure that the PPE produced was in accordance with standard operating procedure (SOP).

In addition to the PPE, Abu Hasan said the Prison Women Staff and Wives of Prison Staff Association (Persiap) had also produced 525 units of face shields for the use of front line personnel.

Meanwhile, the workshop supervisor Sergeant Muhd Mulyadi Abd Ghani said the inmates did not take long to understand the method of sewing PPE as they had mastered the skills as they had previously received orders to produce uniform.

“To ensure the whole process to go as smoothly as possible, we have created three special stations consisting of materials distribution, cutting and stitching. Finished product (PPE) will undergo quality control process by prison staff.

“The most difficult part of the whole process is to insert elastic band at the wrist, chin and shoe cover,” he said.

One of the inmates, Man, 26, who was jailed for drug offences described his job at the cutting section of PPE project has given him the opportunity to contribute in a small way to the country in a difficult situation.

He knew about the Covid-19 outbreak when his mother came to visit him on March 15 and told him about the virus.