The bad news is Manny Kapur, president of Xthetica, a Toronto-based beauty, health and wellness products supply company, along with a respected Toronto doctor, were shocked to learn an order they placed for five million protective masks, much-needed by hospitals during the current COVID-19 pandemic, had gone missing overseas.
The good news is thanks to their creation of a charitable foundation, donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline healthcare workers can now be obtained with a minimum of red tape, with millions of dollars having also been raised in a matter of days for COVID-19 research.
The chain of events can be traced to early March, when Dr. Elaine Chin, a physician who serves as Toronto’s Executive Health Centre medical director, expressed a need for masks for cancer patients with already-weakened immune systems as cases of COVID-19 began to increase worldwide.
“She said ‘we have no masks, we’re running out very fast,’” Manny said, speaking to SooToday from his Toronto home during a telephone interview Friday.
Jennifer Kapur, Manny’s wife and owner/operator of the Sault’s Laser Advantage, is watching COVID-19 play out with a professional eye, also being a registered nurse.
Jennifer, along with other Sault business figures, promised to help Sault Area Hospital (SAH) with providing equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because of high demand during these COVID-19 days, the minimum number of masks for many orders, placed by many groups, must number in the millions.
Dr. Chin reached out to Manny to see if he could find a source for masks.
Manny contacted one of his longtime, trusted suppliers in Spain to arrange for a shipment of masks from China to Canada.
“My supplier said ‘in fact, we are bringing in 10 million masks to Spain, but you have to put in a minimum order for five million masks,’” Manny said.
After Manny and Dr. Chin, with the help of some friends and clients, put down a $500,000 (USD) deposit from a line of credit and placed the order for five million masks to the Spanish supplier March 18, Manny said federal and provincial government officials were helpful to the two, to the point where Canadian Foreign Affairs ministry officials offered their help in getting the masks from China to Canada.
“We were waiting for 2,200 pounds of masks coming in a cargo shipment. We were told they would be loaded on a plane (in Shanghai) and we should soon have them in Vancouver. We had a lot of people involved. Then one afternoon, we were told ‘they can’t find the masks.’ We asked our people for support and there were no masks. They had disappeared,” Manny said.
That was March 23, the expected delivery date for the masks.
“We had heard there was a lot of diversion (of masks and other PPE ordered from China),” Manny said.
While he emphasized neither he nor Chin knows what happened to the masks, Manny said “we just know that they disappeared, and to this day we have no knowledge where they disappeared to. We’ve heard from European countries that things changed on the tarmac, (the masks) going to other planes at the airport in Shanghai, China.”
“There was no communication from the Chinese on it... European countries complained of diversion tactics of PPE to the U.S., and I thought maybe that’s what happened to our stuff.”
Fortunately, Manny and Dr. Chin were able to recover their $500,000 deposit from Spain.
“I was incredulous that we lost five million masks about to be loaded onto a plane,” Manny said.
“More importantly, we were disappointed we were not going to be able to meet our obligations to the hospitals. Jennifer and I were totally disappointed. We were trying to do a good thing.”
“This wasn’t for any publicity. I deal with a lot of doctors across the country and Dr. Chin deals with all the hospitals. It was more of a heartfelt sympathy for the physicians and all the healthcare professionals because Dr. Chin was very adamant this (COVID-19 and shortage of equipment) was going to get very big in the hospitals.”
“I felt devastated because there was such a need for it,” Jennifer said.
Chin launched the Masking Together Challenge foundation, hoping generous donors will buy large numbers of masks with the intention of sending them as gifts to Canadian hospitals.
Manny said the Masking Together Challenge, being a charitable foundation, is a way whereby “we can collect money and buy masks for groups so they wouldn’t be stuck in bureaucracy. We would be able to get masks to the frontline as quickly as possible.”
The Masking Together Challenge wants to hear from donors of PPE such as masks, gowns, gloves, shields and hand sanitizer, the PPE given out to hospitals that need them the most.
The Challenge wants to raise $10 million for COVID-19 research.
“We’re close to $8 million in about a week and a half,” Manny said.
In addition, the foundation is looking for help from hotels in the Greater Toronto Area in an effort to accommodate healthcare professionals, specifically specialists in training looking for places to self isolate from their families as they battle in the trenches against COVID-19.
As for Manny and Jennifer, “we’re sitting in a condo (in Toronto).”
“I would never be able to have the time to do some of this stuff but with businesses closed down everywhere, we’re putting a lot of effort behind this. We’re trying to help. We feel bad for the doctors and the patients.”
Jennifer said masks and other PPE will be making its way to Sault Area Hospital and other local healthcare centres if needed.
“I’m happy a bit of evil (the hijacking of masks) has turned into something good now (with the launch of the foundation). We’ve got a positive attitude moving forward, helping with the foundation. Bad turned to good,” said Jennifer, both she and Manny eager to get back to business once the pandemic has eased.
More information on the Masking Together Challenge, and how to donate, can be found on the foundation’s website
