COVID-19 Archives - GlobalMedic

COVID-19 Response

Beginning in March 2020, GlobalMedic worked to adapt and respond quickly to needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic both internationally and here in Canada. Throughout the entirety of our response, we believed that in order to control this virus and the impacts it was having on vulnerable communities, it was extremely important for all agencies (public and private) to work together to ensure the health and safety of the public. At all stages of this pandemic we continue doing our part in this ever-changing situation.

We carried out a series of programs designed to assist institutions and people affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Critical Infrastructure Program

The healthcare system in Ontario was inundated with people affected by COVID-19. We offered hospitals critical infrastructure tents that they could for patient triage, dedicated testing spaces, or any other need that arose.

Many food banks were forced to close their doors to patrons to help reduce the spread of the virus. However the need for services food banks provide did not diminish and in fact was increasing. We offered our tents to local food banks in an effort to reduce the number of people in buildings and provide a dedicated area for people to access much needed resources.

We also began setting up temporary tenting in partnership with Toronto Community Housing to run flu shot clinics as well as pop-up COVID-19 testing sites. We helped facilitate vaccinations for 6,260 TCHC residents. We set up tenting that was used for COVID-19 vaccination clinics in hotspot areas of the city. We participated in 309 vaccination events helping 231,779 people receive their COVID-19 vaccine.

Aerial view of military tent set up in a parking lot — Critical Infrastructure tenting set up at Daily Bread Food Bank

Tent set up as COVID-19 vaccination clinic — Tent set up at CCRIHC as COVID-19 vaccination clinic

Impact: We set up critical infrastructure tents at Daily Bread Food Bank, North York Harvest Food Bank, Brampton Civic Hospital, Etobicoke General Hospital, the House of Friendship and the Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care

Hygiene and Family Kit Distribution

GlobalMedic has a longstanding partnership with Procter & Gamble. Our volunteers construct hygiene kits using P&G products and distribute them to food banks, shelters, and similar institutions across Canada. Each kit contains full size hygiene items like shampoo, deodorant and toothpaste. We ramped up our production to ensure that the most vulnerable continued to have access to these essential needs during such an uncertain time.

Bars of soap from Clean the World were also being given out to similar institutions to ensure everyone was able to properly wash their hands.

Similar to the hygiene kits, we also distributed family kits to food banks and shelters. These kits contain similar hygiene items, but also include cleaning supplies and laundry detergent and are designed to serve a family rather than an individual.

We provided Thank You Kits to front-line workers in hospitals, senior services and long term care facilities across Canada. The kits included hygiene items for showering after work to help keep the workers safe and healthy. With these kits, we wanted to say thank you to the staff who worked incredibly hard to care for some of our most vulnerable community members.

In collaboration with local fire departments, we handed out COVID Safety Kits containing soap and face masks. As the kits were handed out, fire fighters also promoted the 3 P’s of COVID-19 safety.

people holding hygiene kits and standing in front of boxes — Hygiene Kits delivered to Women’s Centre of Calgary

A man and a woman standing in front of a car holding boxes of soap — GlobalMedic handing off bar soap to Street Health

Thank You Kits delivered to Grand River Hospital

Impact: We provided 45,555 hygiene kits, 2,614 family kits, 1,082 clean up kits and 67,140 bars of soap to community organizations like Woodgreen Community Services, Street Health Toronto and Blue Door Shelter. We also delivered 36,406 Thank You Kits to front-line workers and 17,130 COVID Safety Kits.

Emergency Food Distribution

Many food banks were and continue to face food shortages, as well as seeing a huge increase in new clients due to the pandemic. We have responded by re-packaging staple foods purchased in bulk into 500g bags ready for use, and delivering them to local agencies that serve vulnerable clients. The staple foods include green peas, pearled barley, red lentils, rice, chickpeas, green lentils and kidney beans.

We are also working with Hand Up Toronto, to supply food to families who are newly food insecure and may not know how to engage with the food bank system through our Feed the Six hamper program. These hampers are delivered through contactless drop-offs or drive through pick ups in the Greater Toronto Area.

In addition, early on in our response we were ordering food directly from the supplier and having it delivered to food banks. This cut down on waiting time, and saved food banks the cost of buying the food themselves.

Rows of bags filled with green lentils — Green lentils packed for distribution

A man standing behind two pallets of dried foods — Bulk food delivery to Daily Bread Food Bank

Impact: We provided over 974,300 kg of dried food staples, 24,000 cans of soup and 50,000 eggs to organizations including the Daily Bread Food Bank, North York Harvest Food Bank and Muslim Welfare Centre, and included some of these products in the packing of food hampers. We distributed more than 35,333 food hampers containing items like dry goods, pasta and potatoes through our Feed the Six Kits, as well as 23,770 hampers through our partnerships with North York Harvest and IDRF, and produced 49,920 Emergency Food Boxes for Feed Ontario. We assisted Mississauga Food Bank with sorting their backlog of 78 food donation bins. Finally, we distributed $50,000 of grocery store gift cards.

Hand Sanitizer Program

With many local distilleries closed to the public, some shifted their production method to begin producing hand sanitizer. The sanitizer was been approved by Health Canada and it was ready to fill the gap in supply.

We partnered with some of these local distilleries, including Willibald Farm Distillery, Last Straw Distillery and Murphy’s Law Distillery, and provided buckets and distribution networks. Together, we worked to get hand sanitizer to food banks, shelters, hospitals and other healthcare institutions all across Canada. We also worked to deliver hand sanitizer to First Nations communities in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in these vulnerable populations.

Finally, we acquired large supplies of hand sanitizer from traditional vendors to ensure we could keep supplying critical institutions and preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Two men filling buckets with hand sanitizer — Hand sanitizer production at Last Straw Distillery

Impact: We distributed more than 113,500 L of sanitizer to healthcare institutions, First Nations communities, food banks, shelters and other support programs in Canada.

Cash Assistance Program

So many Canadians are struggling to make ends meet due to job losses as a direct result of COVID-19. We initiated a cash transfer program to help supplement the finances of families that have been affected. Participants were referred through partner food banks and children’s breakfast club programs, and were interviewed before receiving the transfer.

“Thank you for giving us the ability to buy groceries and pay rent”
Cash Transfer Recipient

Impact: 198 families have received $500 cash transfers.

Kits for First Nations Communities

Many First Nations Communities were especially feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. With their locations often remote, access to items like food, hygiene supplies, and personal protective equipment can be difficult and costly.

GlobalMedic and Hydro One partnered to produce and distribute 13,520 kits for First Nations communities across Ontario. These kits included dried foods like rice, lentils, pasta and more, as well as soap, a solar light, and reusable masks.

The kits were designed to support a family for several weeks, and provide them with important resources to keep them safe and healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We also provided 250 kits for Shamattawa First Nation in Northern Manitoba who were struggling with a large outbreak in their community.

Personal Protective Equipment & Medical Supplies

GlobalMedic also worked to make sure Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like face masks and face shields were available to vulnerable groups and front-line workers, both here in Canada and around the world.

In countries that may be struggling with ongoing humanitarian crises or that are simply seeing their systems overwhelmed from the pandemic, availability of PPE can be a concern.

We have distributed masks and face shields in countries including Antigua, the Bahamas, Canada, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, and Syria.

We also organized shipments of PPE and medical supplies like pulse oximeters to India, Bangladesh and Pakistan as they struggled with intense third and fourth waves of infections and overwhelmed hospitals.

Shipment of face masks heading to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Children wearing Face Shields in St Lucia — Children wearing face shields at school in Saint Lucia

Impact: We distributed more than 853,500 face shields, 39,063,200 face masks, 741,400 hospital gowns and coveralls, 533,900 packs of sanitizing wipes, as well as 2,000 pulse oximeters and 10,399 COVID-19 Rapid Test kits.

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Please note that GlobalMedic is taking every precaution to protect its staff and volunteers during this outbreak, including enhanced hygiene practices, and ensuring physical distancing guidelines are followed.

Providing PPE During the COVID-19 Pandemic

A box of PRIMED face masks with the message "Canada thanks you and stands with you" written on it

Sarah Twomey – Emergency Programs Intern

In June of 2021, PRIMED Medical Products partnered with GlobalMedic and Traffic Tech by donating 38 million level three masks to help combat COVID-19 in low-and middle-income countries. As a leading Canadian manufacturer and supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE), PRIMED has worked diligently to provide PPE to the Canadian healthcare system throughout the pandemic. With worldwide case counts of COVID-19 continuing to rise, PRIMED decided they could help support low-resource countries facing serious COVID-19 outbreaks with chronic PPE shortages.

Two representatives from Primed and Traffic Tech holding a donation certificate for PRIMED masks — David Welsh, President & CEO of PRIMED Medical Products, at the donation launch event

GlobalMedic has identified the greatest areas of need for masks and is distributing them to healthcare workers around the world, with almost 20 million masks being sent to India and additional masks arriving in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Syria and Yemen. Masks will also be distributed to low-income countries in the Caribbean and South America including the Bahamas, Grenada and Guyana. Logistics company Traffic Tech has been integral in this process as they donate their time to packing the masks, loading them into sea containers and managing all the logistics associated with the process.

After extensive research, experts have confirmed that COVID-19 mainly spreads from person to person via respiratory droplets that are released into the air when someone breathes, talks, coughs, or sneezes. The CDC states that when worn correctly over the mouth and nose, masks are an effective barrier that helps prevent one person’s respiratory droplets from reaching other people. Wearing a mask is critical for anyone showing symptoms of the virus, but it is also incredibly important that those not experiencing symptoms also wear masks to protect those around them. Several studies across multiple countries have found that people can be infected by the COVID-19 virus without developing symptoms (asymptomatic).

Therefore, even if someone does not appear to have COVID-19, their respiratory droplets can still carry the virus. The World Health Organization, the Centre for Disease Control, and many academics, scientists, epidemiologists, and international experts have ruled masks safe to wear and effective at suppressing the transmission of COVID-19 and the virus variants. Additionally, as cloth and surgical masks are not airtight to the face, there is no risk of the wearer retaining excess carbon dioxide.

Video from: UNSW Sydney / Thorax

While all individuals are strongly advised to wear face masks, the importance of access to high-quality masks and PPE for healthcare workers around the world must be further emphasized. Frontline and healthcare workers are operating in roles that significantly increase their risk of encountering someone with the COVID-19 virus. Without proper PPE, their risk of contracting the virus skyrockets. While providing them with PPE seems like a simple solution, globally disrupted manufacturing and supply chains have left many countries with a critical shortage of these products. Many high-income countries are successfully mitigating this issue, low-and middle-income countries are falling through the cracks.

India, a country with a population of nearly 1.4 billion people, experienced as many as 400,000 new COVID-19 cases a day in the months of March – June 2021. The country surpassed the United States to record the world’s highest one-day surge in cases. According to Indian media outlets, the government struggled to cope with the surge in demand for PPE during these months and the availability of triple-layer surgical masks was highly compromised. A Reuters agency report indicated that India needed over 100,000 PPE kits per day to meet this demand.

Two men hand loading a sea container filled with PRIMED face masks — A sea container of face masks being loaded

Healthcare workers were disproportionately impacted by these shortages as many were working directly with COVID-19 positive patients without the basic equipment to protect themselves from the virus. Some doctors even reported using raincoats or motorbike helmets as a form of make-shift PPE. Many of these health professionals have since contracted the virus and the hospitals they were working at were forced to close to control the outbreaks.

As more masks were made available to India, both through international donations and a massive productive scale-up by the country’s textile industry, COVID-19 cases began to decline. As of August 2021, 95% of citizens report that they regularly wear a mask and new cases have fallen from an average of 400,000 per day to 40,000 per day. While this number is a massive improvement, the risk of rising case counts remains, and there remains a need for high-quality PPE.

The 38 million masks donated by PRIMED will go a long way in supporting the fight against COVID-19 in India and the many other countries that will receive masks. The partnership between GlobalMedic, PRIMED, and Traffic Tech has been highly successful at getting these masks to some of the most vulnerable populations in countries throughout the world. While there is a great deal of work left to be done to support low-resource countries through this global pandemic, companies like PRIMED and Traffic Tech are leading the way with generosity and vigor.

COVID-19 Vaccination Support

Sarah Twomey – Emergency Programs Intern

At GlobalMedic we are incredibly thankful for our dedicated volunteers who make our work possible. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, our volunteers have worked tirelessly to help vulnerable community members navigate the registration process to receive a vaccine and have committed an incredible number of hours to help support pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinics around the GTA. Volunteers fill a number of vital roles at the clinics including assisting with registration, crowd control, observation of individuals post-vaccine, and general logistical operations. By supporting these areas, we help the clinics function in a smooth and efficient manner, allowing more people to receive their vaccinations. As of August 1, GlobalMedic volunteers have participated in over 261 COVID-19 vaccination events helping more than 218,000 people receive their vaccines.

While every clinic we support is integral in the effort to get Canadians vaccinated, one clinic, in particular, is going above and beyond to provide vaccines for some of the most vulnerable populations – the Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Healthcare (CCRIHC) in Scarborough. GlobalMedic has been working with the CCRIHC for the past year to support its efforts to provide vaccines to undocumented persons, immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, international visa students, homeless persons, and those without a health card. This clinic is filling a large gap in the vaccination administration program, as many people were previously ineligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine unless they could present proof of coverage under OHIP. These populations are also some of the most at-risk for contracting the COVID-19 virus as many work in essential, frontline jobs and live in densely populated areas.

GlobalMedic volunteers directing patients into a COVID-19 vaccination clinic — GlobalMedic Team Lead Don Jorgensen directing patrons in and out of a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic

GlobalMedic volunteers handing out food and hygiene items at a pop-up vaccination clinic — GlobalMedic Team Lead Don Jorgensen directing patrons in and out of a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic

GlobalMedic believes that regardless of citizenship status, age, race, sex, socioeconomic status, or geographic location, everyone in Canada should have equitable access to vaccinations. As GlobalMedic founder Rahul Singh says: “None of us is safe, until all of us are safe”. Based on this belief, we are proud to have provided critical infrastructure tents for the CCRIHC clinic to operate out of in all seasons, as well as volunteer bodies each shift to increase vaccination capacity. Our volunteers also distribute hand sanitizer, masks, hygiene kits, and pantry-staple food items to those who attend the clinic.

As an intern with GlobalMedic, I had the opportunity to witness the work of our volunteers at many of these vaccination sites. I quickly realized that while our involvement was clearly supporting the logistic operations of these clinics, we were also making personal connections with the local community, and growing as people and an organization. I had the opportunity to sit down with Marty Bromley, a veteran GlobalMedic volunteer acting as a site lead for a number of the vaccination clinics, and it was abundantly clear how passionate he was about his work at the clinics. While Marty shared stories of overcoming obstacles such as power failures and floods at the clinics, he also shared a story that exemplifies what it means to be a volunteer with this organization. Upon learning that an elderly woman who had just received her vaccine could not afford a taxi home, a kindhearted volunteer offered to push the woman home in a wheelchair, as she insisted it was “just down the road”. After navigating more than half a kilometre through busy intersections and heavy traffic, the volunteer delivered the incredibly thankful woman to her home, and learned that “just down the road” means very different things to different people. This is only one of the many remarkable feats our volunteers have accomplished during their time at these clinics, and it demonstrates how meaningful their involvement truly is.

GlobalMedic Team Leads Marty Bromley and Rob McNamara at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic

In a conversation with Rob McNamara, another veteran GlobalMedic volunteer now acting as a site lead for the CCRIHC clinic, he shared his love for the camaraderie that had developed between the volunteers and clinic staff. As the healthcare professionals at the clinic are also volunteers, he valued that everyone at the site was truly there to make a difference for these vulnerable populations and to ensure these communities did not fall through the cracks. Rob even mentioned that Libby, the clinic’s manager, often cooked traditional Filipino food for all the volunteers to share.

When asked about their favourite part of working at the clinics, both Rob and Marty said the same thing – having the opportunity to work alongside wonderful volunteers. Rob said, “They are talented and dedicated. We also have a lot of fun while making a difference in this fight against COVID-19”. Marty echoed this sentiment emphasizing how proud and honoured he was to work with these volunteers: “They are amazing people who care and have stepped up to help knock out this pandemic”.

From my own time at the clinics, I can say that it’s clear our volunteers truly care. I can’t count the number of genuine connections I watched GlobalMedic volunteers make in the course of one day. It was inspiring. While working at the clinics, I realized how many types of people exist in every community across the GTA. From different ethnic backgrounds, to religions, to sexual orientations, to varied family units, I realized that we can all be so different, and yet many of us are seeking the same things – kindness, empathy, support, and reassurance in these uncertain times. I saw so much excitement and relief from those finally getting their vaccines, and I watched people from all walks of life share in this joy. The hope that came from these vaccine clinics, during a time when many are struggling, lonely, and worried, was incredible to witness.

These experiences are attributable not just to GlobalMedic volunteers, but every healthcare professional, clinic staff member, and person taking the opportunity to get their vaccine. We still have a ways to go until COVID-19 is behind us and equitable protection is afforded to everyone, but each day we are making notable progress. It is with selflessness, empathy, and perseverance that we will get through this pandemic together.

GlobalMedic volunteer at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic — GlobalMedic Team Lead Stefan Mueller at a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic

Feed the Six Campaign

The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a dramatic increase in food insecurity across the Greater Toronto Area. In response, GlobalMedic has partnered with Hand Up Toronto to help “Feed The Six” with nutritious food packages that can help feed thousands of families in need. The response to the program has been overwhelming, with over 21,000 families already signed up to a growing list.

Feed the Six has already distributed over 24,000 kg of food to families in need across the city, reaching about 1,000 families every weekend through contactless delivery. The innovative program is extremely cost effective, with food being purchased in bulk and re-packaged by volunteers into family sized portions.

Humber College has provided the space for volunteers to package these staple foods like rice and legumes. The food packages also contain vegetables and other produce provided by Second Harvest Food Rescue. Volunteer drivers provide contactless delivery to families who are isolated or cannot access a food bank. These packages are delivered to families via pick-up points established by Hand Up Toronto.

Thanks to the support of our corporate partners, the tireless work of our staff and volunteers, and the efficient design of this response program, it is only costing $50 to feed 10 families in need for up to two weeks!

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What is the Toronto Recipe Challenge?

Our Emergency Food Kits are already nutritious, but we’re looking for help to make them delicious.

We are challenging people to create a recipe using one or more of the main ingredients from the food kits (green and red lentils, chickpeas, pearl barley, kidney beans, green peas, and rice) along with simple household seasonings and a maximum of 3 additional ingredients.

This will not only bring awareness to our campaign, but also joy to these families in need – as we will be including many of these recipes in the food kits being distributed.

Want to help Spread Awareness?

Step 1: Follow GlobalMedic (@globalmedicdmgf) on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter
Step 2: Share a post with your recipe and tag #TORecipeChallenge #FeedTheSix @GlobalMedicdmgf @HandUpToronto

Feed the Six Campaign

Feed the Six – Gord Martineau Appeal