A Barry University theater professor with a passion for sewing is helping to arm the health care providers of Florida’s Memorial Healthcare System with reusable, medical grade masks in the fight against COVID-19. The masks are made with surgical wrap, a material widely available in hospitals. They can be sterilized and reused and have been tested by a doctor at one of the system’s hospitals and deemed effective.
Hugh Murphy had been making cloth masks with his quilting group to give to home health care workers when a Facebook friend connected him with a doctor at Memorial Regional, the group’s Hollywood, Florida hospital, who supplied him with the materials for the prototype.
“I think I’ve gone through nine prototypes with different placement of straps, different topstitching, different nose abutments and we were finally able to arrive at a prototype that passed all the tests,” Murphy said.
The hospital asked Murphy and the Barry team to produce an instructional video so their nonessential employees with sewing skills can make as many masks as possible. The masks will be sewn onsite in the hospitals.
The first training session took place this morning, and Murphy was there to train the first group. “Very quickly we should be able to produce a number of these,” Murphy said, “It takes, on average probably 15 or 20 minutes to sew one of these, so in two hours of sewing while the TV’s on in the background, I can make seven or eight of these.”
Murphy learned to sew as part of his work-study job in his college theater department, where the only available job was in the costume shop. In addition to making masks, he is currently in his final semester of teaching and, like professors nationwide, has shifted to remote instruction for his theater students.
When asked why this is important to him, Murphy’s answer was simple. “Either we hang together, or we hang apart… Unless we all do everything we can, then this virus is going to cut a wide swath through not only the people of the United States but the people of the world. So, every one of us has to do everything we can to help in stopping this virus, whether that be social distancing, whether that be making masks, anything.”
Contact: Meredith Amor
Director of Communications
PR@Barry.edu
(305) 775-8629