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Working@BBraun
Committed to fight against corona
B. Braun employees from around the world report on their efforts against Corona. In a crisis, we need people who step up, and take on responsibility. Who do more than is asked of them. Who support those who cannot support themselves.
B. Braun employees showed all of this in the last year. They felt the effects of the crisis early on: the lack of PPE, the shortage of ICU beds, and the hardships of doctors and nurses - and they did something about it. B. Braun employees from around the world talk about their commitment, representing their team and their many colleagues with similar stories.
B. Braun Czech Republic - A shift in perspective
Eva Sádlová
Eva Sádlová is a sales representative in the Hospital Care division. She travels to hospitals in the Czech Republic almost every day for B. Braun to demonstrate devices and give clients technical support. This means she also experienced the pandemic through the eyes of hospital staff. In October 2020, those eyes were tired, worn out and distressed. So she decided to do something that went far beyond her work in sales: She helped out as a volunteer nurse at a hospital in Teplice.
Ms. Sádlová, why did you decide to take on this responsibility and help?
My job at B. Braun is to know how hospitals and hospital staff are doing. I’ve been with my clients for many years and I’m close to them. When I saw how bad things were going for them, I wanted to do everything I could to help. B. Braun helped me by continuing to pay my full salary, even though I worked a total of 60 hours at the hospital in November.
What gave you the idea of volunteering as a nurse?
I’m a trained pediatric nurse, so I knew that I could actually help. It had been 25 years since I had last worked in nursing, though, so I was also a little nervous.
What was your experience as a nurse?
My very first shift was 12 hours long. It was very hard work and, when I got home, I was completely spent. COVID was everywhere. A huge number of nurses had the coronavirus themselves and had to quarantine. But when I looked at the faces of the patients and nursing staff, I was so happy I was able to help.
How did you manage to get through that most difficult time?
The doctors and nursing staff, my clients, motivated me. They do so much good every day during their shifts. Usually, I would just be visiting at the hospital and would only see part of their daily grind. With this insight, I was able to appreciate their work even more and was able to better understand what they need.
What gives you hope?
The vaccinations. The situation at the hospitals is slowly starting to get better because more and more doctors and nurses are getting vaccinated. That’s our way out of this crisis.
B. Braun Italy - Emergency delivery to ICUs
Gabriele Ceratti
Gabriele Ceratti, marketing manager for Hospital Care and OEM manager for the B. Braun Group in Milan, worked with the Italian team in Milan and Mirandola to make the delivery of 10,000 doses of the sedative midazolam possible in just a few days. The sedative was urgently needed in Italy for the mechanical ventilation of thousands of COVID-19 patients who needed help breathing. A supply van from Melsungen, Germany, arrives at the Mirandola warehouse on March 21, 2020. It was a Saturday, and there are usually no deliveries on weekends. But nothing was normal during this period.
Mr. Ceratti, what challenges did you face when procuring the sedative?
Due to the extremely critical situation, the hospitals suddenly needed three or four times the normal amount of this drug. We knew that we would have to get it from another country, but to do that we first needed a special permit - the vials of midazolam from Melsungen had labels in German and English, but only labels in Italian are allowed here.
Why did you and your team decide to take on this responsibility?
In those awful days of the first wave, we saw how the hospitals were in desperate need and we knew right away that we had to respond. Even though we got the ball rolling, it never would have worked without the Regulatory Affairs people at B. Braun in Italy and Germany. They, too, immediately took responsibility and acted. This kind of permit normally takes weeks, but we got it in just a few days. It was an extraordinary situation.
How did you get through that difficult time?
It’s the result of having a great team at B. Braun - both here and in Germany. We could feel the support of our German colleagues quite a lot. Everyone was so kind and sensitive, they understood it was time to respond immediately in order to help Italy and all the patients in this terrible situation.
What gives you hope?
The emergency procurement of midazolam was the first time, but certainly not the last time in this crisis, that we were able to help quickly. We were able to do something similar with the sedative propofol and pumps for hospital beds.
B. Braun USA - Less risk with extra-long IV Extension Sets
Dr. Angela Karpf
Dr. Angela Karpf, Corporate Vice President of Medical Affairs from B. Braun USA, and her medical affairs team worked with other functions to identify the right extension set and ensure extralong IV tubings were available. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, PPE in the United States was scarce. To bypass the problem, ICU nurses found a simple yet very effective method: They extended the IV sets and cables for the infusion pumps, allowing them to move the pumps outside the patient rooms in the COVID-19 wards. Nurses no longer had to enter the room every time they had to make adjustments on the pump or change IV solutions, which lowered the requirements for PPE and helped lower the risk of transmission.
Dr. Karpf, how did you find out about the idea of using extra-long IV sets to limit the risk of infection?
The sales and training teams at B. Braun are our eyes and ears: Even during the crisis, they were still there at the hospitals and in constant contact with customers. In March 2020, they saw that a lot of infusion pumps were standing outside of the patients’ rooms - and we realized that more and more hospitals were asking for extra-long IV sets.
How were you able to help the doctors, nurses and patients with this solution?
We immediately identified the right IV sets and ensured to get enough available to help as many ICUs as possible. To us, getting them wasn’t the only important thing, it was also important that the kits were suitable for this kind of use and were safe. We also wanted to supply training materials, since most nursing staff only very rarelyuse extra-long IV extension sets. The Medical Affairs, Research & Development, Marketing, and Operations departments at B. Braun as well as the production facilities in the Dominican Republic worked together on all of these aspects. On March 28, we got it done. It was really admirable teamwork.
Why did you and your team decide to take on this responsibility?
For the safety of the nurses and the patients. When we saw that we could help with a solution, we didn’t hesitate for a second.
What gives you hope?
I’ve noticed that we can do anything as a team. That we, as an organization, can put our heads together to find solutions so quickly and to recognize and overcome potential hurdles. With this knowledge, I feel ready for the next challenges this pandemic or other crises could bring.
B. Braun Malaysia - From exhibition center to emergency hospital
Clinton Walker
Clinton Walker, business manager of B. Braun Medical Supplies Malaysia, and his team equipped the 30 beds in the High-Dependency Unit with infusion pumps for the Malaysian government in less than a month in the fall of 2020. Due to the alarming rise in infection rates in Malaysia, the old agricultural convention center MAEPS was transformed into an emergency hospital. A total of 10,000 beds for quarantine cases, 30 beds for the seriously ill and 6 ventilator stations for ICU patients needed to be created as quickly as possible.
Mr. Walker, what challenges did you face in providing the equipment?
At that time, the whole world needed infusion pumps because all the hospitals were stocking up due to the rising infection rates. This made distribution itself the first challenge. Aside from that, the MAEPS had become an epicenter of the pandemic in Malaysia, it was already being used as a quarantine center when we came to set up the ICU. So, we tried to do as much as we could in a single day: delivery, installation, and technical training for the doctors and nursing staff. All together, it took us four visits to set up all the beds.
What was the situation like at the MAEPS hospital for you and your team?
There were mostly factory workers, the virus had spread particularly quickly among them - at the factories and in the residential facilities where most of them slept, since they were here from other countries as guest workers. We saw it as our task to care for them as well as possible in this difficult situation.
Why did you and your team decide to take on this responsibility?
My team and I wanted to do our part to bring the pandemic to an end as quickly as possible. We knew that what we were doing would slow the spread of the virus, protecting our country, our families and our friends.
How did you manage to get through that most difficult time?
My team gave me strength. It was very special to see how our devices helped the doctors, nurses and patients with our own eyes. We saw the progress immediately, since everything had to happen so fast: The pumps we installed had seen heavy use by the time we came back, a couple of days later.
B. Braun Europe - Equitable distribution of infusion pumps
Nikolina Borovic
Nikolina Borovic, who was Senior Business Development Manager at the time, received a call from Ireland on March 13, 2020. They wanted to order 1,200 syringe pumps for immediate delivery. Normally, B. Braun sells only 400 of these pumps in Ireland in an entire year. The call was the first sign of an extraordinary situation that would soon turn into a veritable flood of requests. Infusion pumps, which play a critical role in intensive care, are required to administer drugs over a long period of time and at an exact dosage. An ICU bed without a pump is of limited use. At the peak of the pandemic, they became a scarce resource, and their distribution became a task on which lives depended.
Ms. Borovic, what challenges did you face in distributing the infusion pumps?
As infections all over the world skyrocketed, we started getting requests for exorbitant amounts of pumps almost every hour. Quantities we would normally sell over years were suddenly being ordered all at once. While B. Braun does have a process in place to deal with bottlenecks, it wasn't designed for a situation like a pandemic. We didn’t have a plan we could follow step by step because it really was a situation we had never faced before.
How did you and your team handle this responsibility?
We set up a pandemic crisis team right away. Before, I had been responsible for Central and Western Europe and now, suddenly, I was the contact for every country in the world. We then thought about how we could set up a process that also met with ethical standards. Profitability was explicitly ignored. Our primary focus was on how hard each country was being hit by the pandemic.
How did you manage to get through this difficult time?
It all hinges on an agile and diversified team: national organizations, product managers and the supply chain all working together and everyone stepping to help everyone else. It’s important to mention the support from the local sales team and product management, who were ready to go the extra mile for our customers with great passion and commitment. The Management Board’s confidence in the pandemic crisis team also helped us a lot. People were doing everything they could to get pumps and somehow still get preferential treatment, but they still always referred to us and our established process. And lastly, also, was the extraordinary performance from Production - without them, everything would have been a lot harder.
What gives you hope?
With this great cooperation, we were able to actually fulfill more than 90 percent of all orders. The experience has taught us a great deal about how we can be a dependable partner for our customers even in times of crisis - and we’re sharing this knowledge throughout the company. This will make B. Braun ready for similar situations in the future.
B. Braun Spain - Fast help with more ventilators
Samir Azdoudi
Samir Azdoudi, pharmaceutical project engineer at B. Braun Spain, was constantly hearing in the news that hospitals in Spain urgently needed more ventilators in April 2020. When he found out that the Leitat Technological Center and the CARES Foundation in Barcelona were looking for volunteers to help manufacture ventilators, he signed up on the spot. Starting in April, together with his colleagues Cristian Torres and Alejandro Jose Molina, he spent the next month and a half working on ventilators in Barcelona.
Mr. Azdoudi, how did you help manufacture the ventilators?
I was responsible for the electronic parts, like the controls; Alejandro Jose and Cristian were in charge of calibrating and testing the devices. Together, we completed a total of 400 ventilators. In our last week, we taught the employees there how to perform our technical work so they could continue working without us. The ventilators are now in mass production and are already being used in several ICUs.
Why did you and your team decide to take on this responsibility?
When my know-how and my skills can help build a machine that helps other people, it’s a gift for me. B. Braun made it possible for my two colleagues and I to volunteer to work on the ventilators.
How did you manage to get through that difficult time?
We knew exactly why we were doing this work. Every evening, a van came and took all the ventilators that we had just assembled straight to the hospitals. That was very motivating, since the more we made, the more would soon be in the ICUs. We noticed the impact our assistance made, right away.
What gives you hope?
April 2020 was a difficult time for Spain: We were in lockdown and working from home; the streets were empty. When I would get to the Technology Center, suddenly every day I saw people helping each other, they were committed to fighting this pandemic. That gave me hope.
B. Braun Philippines - Riding a bicycle to patients
Edlee Batang
Edlee Batang, a dialysis technician in Quezon City, and the rest of the staff at the B. Braun renal care center on Quezon Avenue had to figure out how to get where they were needed when the rest of the world was at a standstill last year. From the middle of March to the end of May 2020, it was practically a total lockdown: to curb the coronavirus, only those in essential occupations were allowed to be out and about during this phase. That is why many of the streets were closed off and public transit, which many of the staff normally used, was unavailable.
Mr. Batang, how did you manage to get to your patients every day despite the lockdown?
We had the idea of using bicycles. Many of us already had one at home and my colleagues loaned me money to buy one. I still use it today, since traffic is still restricted.
What is your commute like by bike?
It takes me two hours to get to work every morning, my alarm goes off at 3:30 AM so I can get to my patients on time. The commute was pretty exhausting at first, but now I enjoy the exercise.
Why did you decide to take on this responsibility?
Our patients have shown me that they need me, and they appreciate my commitment. That’s how I feel the responsibility that I carry.
How did you manage to get through that most difficult time?
While I’m at work, I’m surrounded by a group of people who will catch me if I fall, and who help me when I need it most: my friends and colleagues.
What gives you hope?
Although I can’t see my family much because of the lockdown, I know that I’m doing this work for them, as well. I do everything I can in the fight against COVID-19 so my little nephews can soon get back to having a normal life.
B. Braun France - Long days for more safety
Nicolas Riancho
Nicolas Riancho, logistics warehouse manager in Ludres, and his team decided to keep the warehouse open for longer hours and on weekends. The B. Braun facility in Ludres received three times as many orders as normal the day after the shutdown in France on March 13, 2020 was announced. Since hospitals were unsure of what the future would bring, they wanted to be ready. At the same time, many of the employees had to stay home from one day to the next, either to take care of their children or because they themselves were high-risk patients.
Mr. Riancho, how did you manage to deal with the high order volume and the lockdown at the same time?
In the beginning, we still thought it was just going to be extreme circumstances for a while, and everything would soon calm down. Instead, more orders came in the following weeks than we had ever seen before. Due to the size of our warehouse and social distancing guidelines, we were only able to hire eight additional workers, so we decided to form two larger teams who would each work in eighthour shifts, from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM instead of until 6:00 PM, plus a shift on Saturday. This meant the shifts only overlapped by two hours instead of four.
Why did you and your team decide to take on this responsibility?
I wanted to meet our customers’ needs while also protecting my employees from the virus. Together, we recognized that extending the times we worked was the most responsible solution.
How did you manage to get through that difficult time?
Our team spirit was our strength. We had meetings every day and were even able to make use of psychological support. We also knew that B. Braun paid attention to a lot of measures from the start, such as PPE and regular disinfection, so that no one was infected. We also received thank-you letters from the management board of B. Braun France, the French government and our customers, which gave us strength.
What gives you hope?
Since mid-May, the situation has relaxed a little and we’re back to our normal shift schedules. I realize that the situation is still difficult, but my team and I also know that we’ve been able to tackle an extreme situation before. We’re here for our customers, no matter what happens.