A specialist family joinery business from Bangor has swapped shop-fits for face shields to help in the fight against Coronavirus.  Dougan Contracts (DC) is helping to protect key Frontline healthcare workers by diversifying its production lines and making face shields, and donating the protective equipment for free. This comes as health workers across the UK say they're struggling to obtain the correct PPE to protect themselves against the threat of infection.
 
The shields are manufactured remotely by their own workforce and DC have joined forces with another local business to help deliver the equipment to frontline workers who need it most. 
 
Company Director Ryan Dougan (9794) said: "Our normal day to day trade includes producing bespoke shop fits and kitchens across Northern Ireland. Like many other businesses in this challenging time, we have had to stop production. It just feels wrong doing nothing when we can see just how hard healthcare providers are stretched at the moment, so I felt we needed to help in whatever way we could.  "We thought why not use the skills we have in house to help? We've teamed up Adam Gilmore (9757) at local firm AG Electrical and together have invested £20k of our own money into developing the production line for the new equipment and expanding our distribution network thanks to AG Electrical."
 
The firm is already in the process of producing 1000 face shields with orders from across the province coming in to their Facebook page set up only last week. Ryan says they hope to increase production week on week however this will be reliant on donations of the required materials.
 
Ryan said: "We've put up the initial cost to start production but as we are delivering and creating these for free, we urgently need a steady supply chain of materials donated to help keep the manufacturing flowing." DC hope that they can help fill the backlog staff say they're suffering here in Northern Ireland and help healthcare staff in the battle against Coronavirus.
 
Ryan Dougan’s (9794) family business are making face masks for the NHS and front line services, in conjunction withAdam Gilmore (9757) at AG Electrical - . If you would like to help them help the NHS then you can do so via GoFundMe Page:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/dc-face-shields-help-us-help-you?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet