Facing a shortage of protective equipment needed for medical professionals in the UK’s National Health Service safe as they continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, health officials in England got creative. They called MedFet, a supplier of medical fetish gear for folks who like “playing doctor.”

On March 27, MedFet tweeted, “Today we donated our entire stock of disposable scrubs to an NHS hospital. It was just a few sets, because we don’t carry large stocks, but they were desperate, so we sent them free of charge.”

The company—which bills itself as “The only online store 100% dedicated to Medical Fetish, Kink and Roleplay,” boasting “250+ genuine medical-grade products”—went on to tweet that, though they don’t usually “do politics” online, they felt they needed to make a statement about their donation. 

“We have been contacted this week by representatives of NHS procurement all over the country, trying to source basic protective equipment and clothing.” They continued, “When we, a tiny company set up to serve a small section of the kink community, find ourselves being sought out as a last-resort supplier to our National Health Service in a time of crisis, something is seriously wrong.”

Citing years of underfunding and cuts to the NHS, they tweeted, “Let’s not forget, or forgive, the ones who sent the NHS into this battle with inadequate armour and one hand tied behind its back.”

The UK had tallied 1,228 deaths due to COVID-19 as of Monday morning, according to the New York Times, and nearly 20,000 confirmed cases of infection. The National Medical Service appears to be over-inundated and unable to keep up with the demand for protective gear. Good thing there are medical fetishists out there to provide an alternative source of scrubs!

The news about MedFet’s donation went viral (for lack of a better term) over the weekend, with Newsweek, Unilad, The Sun, and others picking up the headline that—shocker!—an adult-oriented fetish company might have a conscience. Those of us more familiar with folks in the adult industry and their ongoing commitments to health and wellness as well as charitable giving will be less surprised. But we’ll also admit that Newsweek’s “Medical Fetish Site Donates Entire Stock of Scrubs After Being Contacted by ‘Desperate’ Health Officials” was a pretty great headline.

As of Monday morning, the company showed that their initial tweet had received nearly 3.5 million impressions on their initial tweet. They announced they would not be taking any further media inquiries, as “We are not heroes and we don’t deserve any special kudos. We just did the obvious and only right thing to do. The real heroes are the NHS staff at every level who are on the front line of this fight.”

Stock photo of man in scrubs by Jonathan Borba from Pexels