Intergesso donated 1,500 masks to hospitals and Câmara do Seixal

With the country undergoing an exponential rise in the number of infected cases by COVID-19 and with a large deficit of protective material in the medical community, San Ho, CEO of Intergesso and born in Macau, felt that she had to do something to help. A far from simple process, told in the first person:

“Due to having family in both Macau and Guangzhou, I’ve been closely following the evolution of the virus spread since its inception.

When the first cases were confirmed in Portugal, back in March 8th, I started to look intensively and, making use of all the contacts I have in manufacturing companies, managed to find one company that was available to sell 2,000 units of masks. At the time, China wasn’t exporting masks in “small” volumes. Allow me to remind that in Asia most countries were still drastically in need of masks, hence the limits imposed to exports to outside of Asia.

When we finally managed to overcome all the bureaucratic barriers, and in a race against time, we finalized the order and transported them in by way of plane before all the aerial connections were closed.

Unfortunately, as we expected, the lack of availability of masks came to pass and if there is something that definitely shocks me in all this is the sight of merchants taking advantage of this pandemic to sell masks at 20€ per unit. It is, in my opinion, a shameful way of acting.

The masks have already been delivered to Hospital Garcia de Orta in Almada through Dr. Vítor Fernandes, gastroenterologist, and to C.H.U.L.C. To Câmara do Seixal, 200 units have also been delivered through the Protecção Civil do Seixal. We’d like to add that we are now looking into finding the fastest way to bring surgical masks and robes to our health professionals that are fighting on the frontlines every day. We’d like to order at least an additional 10,000 masks to the various health units in need. The difficulties with importing these materials are still many due to bureaucratic reasons.”

Time is running out! I call to whoever wishes to contribute to this donation, you can contact us through email portugal@intergesso.com. Intergesso, founded in 1999 is an expert in plaster handmade decorative elements with a manufacturing plant and headquarter situated in Paio Pires, Seixal, Portugal.