Mr Sanjay Purkayastha, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Bariatric Surgery and Consultant Surgeon for the Department, has worked with fashion retailer Burberry to supply St Mary’s Hospital with one tonne of surgical gowns.
In March, as St Mary’s hospital filled up with COVID-19 patients, the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals who provided ward care began to worry about the amount of PPE available to protect them from the virus. Acting on this, Mr Purkayastha contacted luxury fashion company Burberry about helping to keep our hospital staff safe
As someone who trained, worked, and whose children were born at St Mary’s, Mr Purkayastha wanted to help the hospital during these difficult times in any way he could. Amazingly, senior Burberry management responded to his call to arms within days and agreed to produce surgical gowns for the St Mary’s Hospital.
Initial samples of the Burberry gowns were sent to IPC for thorough testing, where they received a glowing review and were said to be some of the best gowns they had seen. After being tested and certified for use, Burberry delivered one tonne of high-quality gowns (around 2,000) to be used at St Mary’s.
The gowns have been greatly appreciated and are now hot property on the wards as everyone wants to wear these light weight, protective and ‘fashionable’ pieces of attire. Staff across the Department and hospital would like to say a huge thank you to Burberry for stepping up in these difficult times and helping protect our key workers. We would also like to thank Sanjay for his foresight and hard work to make this possible.
