To help protect health and livelihoods of those affected by the pandemic, Inter Ikea Group initiated several initiatives. One of them has been to use its supply chain infrastructure to produce personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. The equipment has been delivered to local and global organisations including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact everyone. Around the world, MSF provides medical care to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Since the start of the pandemic, healthcare workers worldwide have struggled to find the personal protective equipment they need to protect their health.

“Because of shortages of personal protective equipment during the spring, we reached out to Ikea since we had read that Ikea was repurposing some production lines at their suppliers. Ikea responded in a blink—literally after a few hours we started the collaboration,” said Valentina Rosa, deputy director of fundraising at MSF.

Quality is one important factor for healthcare equipment. The requirements for the personal protective equipment, in this case, protective gowns, was set by specialists at MSF who were working closely together with the Ikea supplier to ensure the requested quality. The protective gowns were produced by an Ikea supplier in Asia and have been delivered to MSF hubs in Europe for further distribution. Today, millions of protective gowns are being shipped to all of MSF’s mission countries to protect the healthcare workers in their daily work.

“We have made a long-term promise, even now in this special situation, to stand by the many and we will continue to do our part to create a better everyday life for the many people. We are proud to have been given the opportunity to contribute to the important work that Médecins Sans Frontières healthcare workers are doing under these extraordinary circumstances with the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Henrik Elm, global supply chain manager, Ikea Supply AG.