Dundee Rep seamstress makes scrubs

Dundee Rep’s head costume designer has swapped creating eye-catching on-stage outfits for co-ordinating efforts to make thousands of hospital scrubs during the coronavirus lockdown.

Cate Mackie has been leading the Dundee push to make 5,000 sets of scrubs for hospital staff battling Covid-19 across NHS Tayside, as part of the nationwide For the Love of Scrubs movement.

It is a far cry from her normal day job making outfits for performers at the Rep on Tay Square.

However, as demand for scrubs soars, Cate and her team have stepped up to help provide the uniforms needed by NHS staff.

The only issue for the group has been the lack of fabric to make the scrubs – and donations to help supply material have been encouraged in a bid to help with the production.

Cate said: “This is keeping me so busy during the lockdown – it is like putting on three pantos at the same time.

“I got a request for 1,000 of each size of scrubs – that is 5,000 sets. We don’t have enough money for the fabric to do all of that but we are trying to do as many as we can.

“There are so many people out there wanting to help us make these scrubs but there is not enough fabric to go around.”

All the money raised through a Gofundme page so far has been spent on buying the fabric needed to make the scrubs. Only certain materials can be used when making hospital scrubs, since it needs to withstand extremely high temperatures when being laundered.

Cate is using her house as a central contact point for Dundee, where she can distribute the fabric to sewers and collect the finished scrubs for the hospital.

Anyone wishing to donate can visit the Gofundme website and search for NHS Scotland – For the Love of Scrubs.

Picture: Kim Cessford. Cate Mackie has swapped costume making for sewing uniforms for NHS staff.