As coronavirus cases in the Houston area continue to grow, the severe shortage of personal protective equipment such as surgical gowns, gloves and masks have become increasingly common in local hospitals. Masks especially have been desperately needed by physicians and hospitals. The Sugar Land branch, teamed up with a local Chinese community group, put a great effort into searching and collecting the now-scarce NIOSH certified N95 masks from the leftover supply of unused masks from Hurricane Harvey. On March 22, the collection of masks was donated to Dr. Basit, the president of the Fort Bend Medical Society and chief of staff at Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital, who will directly distribute the masks to the front line doctors and staff in the ER and ICU among the four major local hospitals.
