A Mobile nail salon has donated thousands of pieces of protective equipment to Providence Hospital, helping ease a supply crunch that has left many local healthcare workers scrambling to protect themselves as they treat patients during the coronavirus outbreak.
Top Nails 2, a salon in the Vietnamese community that serves the greater Mobile area, delivered six boxes of gloves and five boxes of masks to the hospital over the weekend, according to hospital staff. Combined, the donation amounts to roughly 1,300 gloves and 6,500 masks now available to protect doctors, nurses and other frontline staff.
The gift came together after a Providence Hospital pharmacist grew increasingly troubled watching colleagues search for ways to protect themselves without adequate supplies on hand.
“It broke my heart to see my health care family share ideas on Facebook about how to make masks from cloth and how to protect themselves,” said Hien My Pham, a pharmacist at the hospital.
Pham said she began looking for a solution after seeing a story about a nail salon owner outside Alabama who had donated unused gloves and masks to hospitals facing shortages of their own. Recognizing that many nail salons keep a supply of protective gear on hand for daily use, she reached out to salon owners she knew personally in the local Vietnamese community, hoping someone might be able to help.
Top Nails 2 owner Huy Nguyen did not hesitate.
“We feel like it is our responsibility to share what we have to the community,” Nguyen said.
For Pham, the response was overwhelming.
“I just started crying. I said thank you so much,” she said.
Nguyen said the decision to give away supplies the salon might otherwise need was an easy one, framing it as a matter of protecting the broader community from the spread of the virus.
“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.
The donation reflects a broader wave of grassroots giving that emerged across the country in the spring of 2020, as nail salons, dentists, construction companies and other businesses that regularly use masks and gloves in their daily operations found themselves with supplies that hospitals and clinics urgently needed. With national distribution channels for personal protective equipment strained, many hospitals turned to their own communities to help close the gap.
Healthcare workers across the Mobile area have continued to raise concerns about access to adequate protective equipment as they care for patients. Local business owners stepping forward with donations, however small, have helped provide some relief while larger supply chains work to catch up with demand.