Oswego Hospital has received a donation of over 16,000 gloves from Oswego State’s departments of biology and chemistry in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. The donation comes after college president Deborah Stanley asked the science departments to create an inventory of items that could be donated.

The department of biological sciences and Rice Creek Field Station were the primary donors, lending a total of 7,600 gloves. The chemistry department donated 4,000 gloves, while the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Center gave 5,000 gloves.

Oswego State is also eyeing the possibility of donating ethanol from its stores to be used as a disinfectant. 

“The gloves we donated were supposed to be used in teaching and research labs during spring and part of the summer,” chemistry department chair Fehmi Damkaci said. “We usually buy new gloves by September for the new semester, and hope that gloves will be available widely again by that time.”

According to Damkaci, the donation was made before the number of cases grew locally. The motion was meant to proactively brace for a possible surge in positive cases related to coronavirus.

Faculty of the departments of biological sciences, chemistry, molecular biology and the Biochemistry Center decided that their best contribution is to  help Oswego Hospital with personal protection equipment now. 

“Oswego Hospital has been amazingly supportive in its interactions with SUNY Oswego’s teaching and research community,” chemistry professor Kestutis Bendinskas said. “The least we could do was to help our local medical heroes at the time of the need with some gloves that would be sitting on our shelves without any use.” 

While the local community makes up for the most of the patients who visit Oswego Hospital, students who remained on campus may also visit Oswego Hospital.

“It was the realization that, inevitably, the pandemic will hit New York state, and there might be shortages here similar to what was being experienced in other countries,” Bendinskas said. “The logic dictated to prepare as early as possible, while it’s possible.”