A Mobile nail salon owner has donated thousands of masks and gloves to Providence Hospital, answering a call from a hospital pharmacist who was heartbroken seeing healthcare workers struggle with supply shortages during the coronavirus outbreak.
Hien My Pham, a pharmacist at Providence Hospital, said she had been watching her colleagues share ideas on Facebook about how to make masks from cloth and find other ways to protect themselves. Inspired by a post about a nail salon owner in the Northeast donating unused supplies to hospitals, Pham reached out to salon owners she knew in the Vietnamese community.
Top Nails 2 responded. Owner Huy Nguyen gathered six boxes of gloves and five boxes of masks from his business and handed them over for Pham to deliver to the hospital.
“We feel like it is our responsibility to share what we have to the community,” Nguyen said.
In total, the donation included 1,300 pairs of gloves and 6,500 masks, all now being used to protect healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic.
“If we do not help the nurse or the doctor or the hospital to stop the spread of this virus, then one day we will get that virus,” Nguyen said.
Pham said the gesture moved her to tears. “I just started crying. I said thank you so much,” she said.