PROVIDENCE – Kaya Suner understands fully what is currently happening with the COVID-19 pandemic as his parents both work as emergency room doctors, and wanted to help out in any way possible.
He first suggested to his mother that maybe he could sew custom cloth masks for medical workers. But Suner’s mother knew his sewing skills weren’t exactly “up to par,” Suner said Monday to Providence Business News.
But, Suner, 19 of Providence who attended Emerson College this year, said his mother did inform him that coronavirus patients are battling the disease – and in some cases, dying from it – all alone in the hospitals because state officials implemented a ban on hospital visitation, with no ability to stay connected with loved ones even from a distance.
“[My mother] was saying that the hospitals really need Apple devices right now because there’s all of these dying patients and there’s a visitation ban,” Suner said. “So, there’s no way these patients can say goodbye to their loved ones as they’re passing away, which is horribly unfortunate.”
From there, Suner found a way for patients to be connected to family while in the hospital. Working alongside Providence-based nonprofit Rhode Island Medical Society, Suner created a nonprofit called COVID Connectors, a platform where individuals and entities can donate iPads that will be distributed to area hospitals for critically-ill COVID-19 patients to use to talk to friends and family while in the hospital.
Suner and a high school friend created a website, which launched last week, that provides information on how individuals can donate their devices, how to erase any personal data on them, and either ship them or drop them off at the Rhode Island Medical Society to be delivered to local hospitals. In addition to having a thank-you video by medical professionals, the website also includes information on how to help deploy the devices.
Suner said the initiative originally started by asking friends on Facebook to donate their iPads to help in the cause, and the devices came quite fast.
“I had my parents’ friends on Facebook and friends from school saying ‘hey, I have an old iPad. Let me send it your way,’” Suner said. “That was when I was like, ‘oh man I can’t be taking all of these iPads. I have to partner with someone who could take care of that.”
Suner said he then connected with Dr. Rory Merritt, the assistant dean of medicine, program in liberal medical education at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who then connected Suner to the Rhode Island Medical Society to help with his endeavor. Steven R. DeToy, Rhode Island Medical Society’s director of government and public affairs, told PBN the organization had already been collecting personal protective equipment for emergency-room use and quickly jumped at the opportunity to help Suner out.
“I think this is huge,” DeToy said of Suner’s initiative. “If I put myself in that position being in the hospital and having no family or friends being able to visit me, I think it will go a long way in helping people’s mental attitude toward their recovery and be a very big positive on their outcomes when the come out of the hospital.”
DeToy said close 20 iPads and smartphones, and a few stands for the iPads, had been donated as of Wednesday and will be delivered to hospitals across Rhode Island. He also said he received a “promise” from the University of Rhode Island that the university will deliver about 40 to 50 iPads for Suner’s cause.
On Tuesday, Suner received even better news for his cause. Amazon.com Inc. will be donating 540 devices to COVID Connectors to be given to hospitals for patients.
Suner said depending how many iPads and devices are donated, he would like to see his initiative expand to neighboring New England states and help people in those hospitals as well.
“We think at least Massachusetts would buy into it,” Suner said. “We’ve been talking to a few people potentially getting them into [Massachusetts] General Hospital, Brigham & Women’s [Hospital] and they seem they want to buy into it. It’s just a matter of when we do that.
“We’re really hopeful that this is successful in Rhode Island and that COVID-19 runs its course and that we don’t need to expand.”
Providence Business News is spotlighting nonprofits, companies and workers stepping up to challenges presented by the spread of the new coronavirus.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
