Volunteers help frontliners relieve ear pain

VOLUNTEERS across the country have come up with ways to help front line medical workers in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic relieve ear pain caused by prolonged use of face masks.

Ear guards, made of silicone or wool, are gadgets that go behind the head and have hooks to attach the straps of the medical mask to protect the ears of the wearers.

Thuy Trang, the co-founder of the Anti-Covid-19 Group, said she spoke with a doctor at the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, who said doctors there suffered serious ear pain as they had to wear face masks the entire day.

“The story motivated me to do something for them.

“When I read an article about a Canadian boy making a plastic product to help reduce the pressure of the mask straps during the Covid19 pandemic, I decided to make the same product,” she told Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

Based on the initial model, she redesigned it to suit the size of Vietnamese people’s head and used a member’s garment factory to manufacture the products.

“Instead of plastic and leather, I chose a silicone material that is easy to disinfect and reuse,” she added.

The ear guards are made from small pieces of silicone. After the moulding process is finished, they can be disinfected with alcohol and then kneaded with talc powder to create a smooth surface for the product.

Each product has small hooks to attach the mask straps depending on the size of the wearer’s head.

Initially, the group made 400 products and sent them to the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion and Bach Mai Hospital.

“We have received positive feedback from doctors and nurses. They were happy to say that they no longer had ear pain when wearing face masks,” Trang said.

So far, the group has produced nearly 10,000 ear guards to present to front line doctors at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and provincial hospitals across the country.

Meanwhile, volunteers in Danang City – a Covid-19 hotspot – came up with the idea of making ear guards with local cotton and textile yarn. One roll of wool can make between 30 and 40 ear guards.

The products are donated to doctors and nurses and quarantined patients at front line hospitals.