What do you do when a crucial part of a lifesaving piece of medical equipment is in hopelessly short supply? You 3D print yourself a supply of them, of course. At least, that’s what happened at a hospital in Brescia, Italy, rocked by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic .

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While ventilator breathing machines are not exactly in abundant supply, medical professionals found that the valves connecting the machine to the patient were even scarcer. This is due to the fact that they have to be regularly swapped out between patients, giving the component a very short life span. “They had the breathing machines and the masks, but they didn’t have the connector between them,” Alessandro Romaioli, technical engineer of Isinnova, told Digital Trends. “That meant the patients could not breath properly. [The hospital] wanted us to print as many valves as possible in a really, really short space […]

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