MotorTrend and Ford Team Up to Deliver Face Shields to Pasadena Shriners Hospital for Children

Shriners Hospital for Children Medical Center, a Pasadena hospital providing advanced care and procedures for children with orthopaedic and neuromusculoskeletal conditions and injuries, burns, spinal cord injuries, cleft lip and palate, and other complex health care needs, received about 3,500 reusable face shields donated by Ford and auto industry news outlet MotorTrend.

MotorTrend is reporting that Ford has delivered these reusable face shields to the publication’s El Segundo headquarters for donation to Shriners Hospital.

Ford started manufacturing hospital ventilators and personal protective equipment after the coronavirus emergency shuttered every car-making plant in the world and caused hundreds of lay-offs and millions of dollars in losses.

The PPEs and ventilators come out of Ford’s Michigan-based auto factories that have been converted into medical manufacturing facilities, MotorTrend said in the report.

Shriners Hospital is not currently caring for Coronavirus patients, but they continue to perform critical surgeries for children with special healthcare needs. Dr. Robert Cho, Chief of Staff at the hospital, said his team will be in need of medical gear as elective surgeries start to ramp up. Already, the hospital is seeing shortages in protective gear, with the staff having to reuse and re-sterilize N95 masks, the report said.

Dr. Cho and other hospital staff, including Wolfgang Kupka, Chairman of the Board of Governors, were on hand to receive the boxes of Ford-built face shields.

“Our 22 facilities are feeling the effect of the global pandemic,” Cho said in a prepared statement. “All of our supply chain is disrupted in almost all of our personal protective equipment. This donation from MotorTrend and Ford is a real big step for us to keep our patients and families safe.”

As of April 30, Ford has assembled more than 6,000 ventilators, 120,000 reusable gowns, and more than 10 million face shields, the report said. The company is also producing millions of face masks to provide to its employees once they return to work.