Poly scrubs

The coronavirus known as Covid-19 caused huge and devastating impacts on health and economies in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. Since December 2019, when the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was reported in Wuhan, China, the virus spread rapidly around the globe. Many countries went into periods of ‘lockdown’ to reduce transmission, with businesses closed, and citizens ordered to stay home.

Essential services

Health workers were among the many people providing essential services. In some facilities staff were encouraged to wear scrubs as a means of protecting themselves and their wider whānau from contracting Covid-19. These Poly scrubs are a set of medical scrubs worn by Dr Shavonne Duffy, a General Practitioner based in Tāmaki Auckland, New Zealand.  At the time of the outbreak, Shavonne did not have her own. Her mother, Lolita Asopesio Duffy, made these scrubs with leftover material from the puletasi (Sāmoan two-piece formal dress) she had made for her daughter’s graduation a couple of years earlier.

Recounting her experiences of lockdown, Shavonne shares:

"Initially, I was terrified for my patients, my colleagues, and for my family. We could see what was happening in northern Italy. My concern at the time was that New Zealand would be put in the same situation. If Covid infiltrated the community, it would be catastrophic. We were advised by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners that we should aim to have 70% of our consults via phone/virtual consults. We had to change the way we delivered healthcare. We transitioned from having a busy waiting room and seeing patients face to face, to phone triaging, phone consultations, and screening every person who walked through the doors. Some of the fears and challenges of this period included patients being frightened to go to hospital and exposing themselves to Covid, concerns of the financial impact for our patients and their whānau, whilst trying to provide safe health care, and minimising risk to our staff and patients".

These Poly scrubs help us tell the stories of essential workers, the changes and difficulties for those working and using health services, and the uptake in the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).