Helping people to breathe

Production has been stepped up at a company in eastern Switzerland that makes breathing machines, as health services struggle to help a growing number of coronavirus patients. 

Switzerland is one of the countries most affected by the virus, with more than 17,800 positive tests and more than 488 deaths. There are 82 intensive care units, which have a total of 950-1,000 beds; around 850 of these are equipped with respirators. The army has around 100 additional respirators and has ordered 900 more.

Switzerland is not alone in depending on this equipment to support the lives of people with serious breathing difficulties. The HamiltonExternal link respirators made in Ems, canton Graubünden, are shipped all over the world. Around 100 new machines leave the factory every day. 

This is a portrait of Laura Werth, one of Hamilton’s dedicated employees, who works seven days a week to help out in this crisis. Her job is to calibrate the respirators. 

“I try to keep cool and calm in this situation, not to panic,” she told Swiss public television, SRF. “And every day I come to work in the knowledge that I’m doing something good.”