By Yunjia Hou
April 17, 2020
(This story has been published by Wicked Local- Weston)
Hospital workers from Saint Vincent Hospital stand in a row and hold thank-you signs to appreciate the personal protective equipment donated by WeStar Alliance. (PHOTO COURTESY WeStar Alliance)
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Qian Ge’s house has become a medical supplies transfer station, first for China, and now for hospitals, nursing homes, police stations and fire stations in Greater Boston.
Ge moved to Weston in 2013 from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in China. She used to be a businesswoman before she decided to quit her job and take care of her two children at home.
“I feel guilty when seeing masks temporarily stored at my home. I like to deliver them to hospitals as soon as possible,” said Ge. “The Chinese community is making the same hard efforts to procure medical supplies for Boston as we did for Wuhan. We have heard so many sad stories about Wuhan and we don’t like to see Boston suffer like Wuhan.”
Ge is a co-founder of a nonprofit called WeStar Alliance, which was initially founded to organize Chinese New Year celebrations in Weston in early 2019. After the coronavirus outbreak, she said it became the first Chinese association in Greater Boston to send medical supplies to China from the U.S., bringing together more than 50 Chinese associations to combat the pandemic.
Up to now, WeStar Alliance has obtained about 35,000 KN95 masks, 148,000 surgical masks, 1,260 coveralls and 1,000 protective goggles.
Like Ge, a lot of people from the Chinese community are utilizing their connections in China to obtain personal protection equipment for hospitals and people in need in Greater Boston.
“Procuring masks from China is the most workable way to ease the shortage at this point,” said Fan Wu, another co-founder of WeStar Alliance, who is also a Weston resident.
American mask suppliers are not able to support the whole nation, while China is a huge mask provider and is the only country whose production activities are gradually returning to normal, said Wu.
The masks WeStar Alliance donated have been mailed from their relatives and friends in China or ordered from Chinese mask suppliers, who hold FDA certifications. WeStar Alliance shared its list of reliable Chinese mask suppliers with Boston hospitals, which are desperately seeking the equipment.
Boston Medical Center posted on Twitter and sent an email thanking WeStar Alliance for the donation.
“Thank you so much for your donation of 420 KN95 masks to Boston Medical Center! In this time of increased need, your gift is so valuable to our health care workers on the front lines,” the email said.
Hospital workers from Tufts Medical Center hold thank-you signs to appreciate the personal protective equipment donated by WeStar Alliance. (PHOTO COURTESY WeStar Alliance)
Wu and Ge said they feel “heartwarming and fearless” when devoting themselves to obtaining medical gear for hospitals. They have been working hard on negotiating with mask suppliers, signing liability waivers with hospitals, tracking packages and delivering packages, and have no time to feel bored even if they seldom go outside like everyone else.
Ge said she was surprised that the Chinese community could unite and fight together in the crisis, even though people have different opinions on a lot of political issues most of the time. “When you are doing something right, everyone around you will try their best to support you,” said Ge.
Ge and Wu said what they could do was limited. To get substantial medical supplies and really solve the problem, governments need to take more responsibility, they said.
Their focus right now is on helping small hospitals, nursing homes and fire stations as the shortage of medical supplies appears to be easing for larger hospitals.
Some people from the Chinese community don’t have avenues to directly purchase masks from suppliers in China, but are collecting masks from the Chinese community door-by-door to aid hospitals.
Dan Mu, the co-founder of an Arlington education start-up, said after hearing of hundreds of Boston hospital workers getting infected with coronavirus in mid-March, she created a network called the Chinese community in Massachusetts on the social media app, WeChat, in order to procure masks.
It takes a week and even longer to mail masks from China or order from Amazon, but frontline hospital workers have no time to wait, said Mu.
“Can you imagine a medical director came to my house at 9 p.m. to pick up only 30 KN95 masks?” she said. “His eyes flooded with tears and he waved to me to say thank you. My heart was weeping at that time.”
Most families among the Chinese community conserved some masks when coronavirus started to spread in the U.S. because they know how China suffered from the virus. Mu and her friends collected masks from those families and delivered them to the frontline when there was a global shortage of masks at the beginning of the outbreak.
Chinese community in Massachusetts’s poster (PHOTO COURTESY Dan Mu)
From March 18 to April 1, they donated nearly 30,000 masks to hospitals like MelroseWakefield Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center.
Mu and volunteers with the Chinese community in Massachusetts created 12 stations based on region — including Arlington, Lexington, Malden and Melrose — and a person from the group takes charge of collecting masks in each region. People who like to donate can either drop off their masks at a station or ask for a pick-up after filling a form online.
“I think the pick-up service makes things easier for donors who are afraid of going to hospitals as there is a high infection risk,” said Mu. The group can only get dozens of masks from every family, Mu said, but it is able to make a difference when hundreds of families participate.
“We have never faced discrimination against Asians when donating medical supplies. People are grateful when accepting them,” said Zhiqun Zhang, a volunteer with Newton Alliance of Chinese Americans. “We need to do something to protect people who are protecting us.”
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