Firefighter Saul Pena stands beside a homemade structure of disinfection by nebulization, created and built by him and his colleague Miguel Angel Pisador (not pictured), and free of charge, to help healthcare personnel disinfect, as a worker of a nursing home tests it after setting it up, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Penafiel, Spain, May 6, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

Firefighter Saul Pena and his colleague Miguel Angel Pisadon have designed a simple and practical disinfection station they provide free of charge to nursing homes in the area around Valladolid, in northwestern Spain, as they hope to contain the spread of coronavirus among the most vulnerable and their carers.

The portable station is designed to allow care workers and health staff to disinfect their personal protection equipment (PPE) in a simple fashion, without the help of an additional person.

What it does is it pulverizes a hypochlorite solution over their PPE and disinfects it before they proceed to remove the PPE so that it can be done safely, Pena explains after demonstrating how it is used in the car park of the Valladolid fire station.

By simply standing under the structure and turning in the same place, the nebulized disinfectant solution covers the user’s PPE, making removal of the gear safer after disinfection.

When they remove their suit, their PPE, they have to follow a strict procedure but it’s not always done either because they don’t know how or they don’t to it properly or indirectly because they are incapable of doing so, Saul said, adding that a stop at the station removes a large part of the risk.

Spain’s nursing have been severely hit by the coronavirus infection and many carers and residents have been infected.

Giving nursing home staff the confidence they will not be infected or that they will not infect others is key, a care worker who did not want to identify herself, said.

I think it is a fantastic system for people who work here because it gives us peace of mind to know we won’t get infected in the nursing home. We go in clean and know we won’t spread anything to our residents, she said.

The station costs under 300 euros to make.

Up to May 6, 17,452 nursing home residents who tested positive for COVID-19 or have had compatible symptoms have died in Spain, local media reported, using information provided by the Spanish health ministry and regional authorities.

(Source: Reuters)