Guelph General Hospital is turning to the public for help sourcing crutches amid a nationwide shortage.
"If you have any good condition or working aluminum crutches that you don't need any longer, we would love to have them here at Guelph General," the hospital said in a Facebook post.
A donation bin has been set up just inside the main entrance doors of the hospital.
"There is a nationwide shortage of crutches due to supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic," the hospital continued.
"Your donation will help those who may need crutches while here and also when they are discharged."
An email from Perry Hagerman, senior communications specialist for the hospital said, "so far we haven't received many donated aluminium crutches."
"Those we have received are sterilized before being added to our inventory," he continued. "It is still a concern as the supply of new crutches remains unpredictable."
As for the impact on hospital operations, at this point no services have been affected by the crutches shortage, Hagerman said.
"We were fortunate some of our back-ordered supply did recently arrive," he said.
Hagerman said the hospital was advised by its supplier of a supply chain disruption affecting crutches in September.
The Chinese port where the product ships from experienced a surged in COVID-19 infections which cut capacity by 70 per cent for several weeks before Chinese authorities closed the port for several more weeks, the supplier said.
Now reopened, the port is working through a backlog of containers and the supplier is working on expediting container receiving where possible, the supplier said.