Höganäs donates 165,000 surgical face masks to Swedish hospital
“Through the Swedish Chamber of Commerce here in Shanghai, we were able to ship and donate the masks to Örebro University hospital in Sweden,” says Mark Braithwaite, who heads continent APAC. “If only so little, we are happy to ease the burden on the Swedish national healthcare.”
In February, during the peak of the corona crisis in China, Höganäs co-workers in China received a lot of support and care from colleagues around the world. Also, Höganäs in China together with its co-workers donated 184,000 CNY (25,000 USD) to support the Wuhan district through a charity foundation.
“Then during March, Höganäs in China sent more than 38,000 masks to different Höganäs countries to support maintained operations,” says Terry Chen, who heads the operations at Höganäs’ plant in Quing-Pu, Shanghai. “It became apparent that there was good availability of face masks in China, but shortages in many other parts of the world. We thought we could help.”
With the recent rapid spread of corona virus across the world, including Sweden, Höganäs in China decided to donate face masks to hospitals in need. Through reaching out to the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in China in mid-March, Höganäs was introduced to the brothers Fabian and Aron Fredriksson. They have an extensive business network in the Chinese medical equipment market and supported in identifying hospitals in Sweden in critical need of face masks and ensuring that approved masks were supplied and able to be exported.
“The whole process took a little longer than expected to finalise, but we managed thanks to support from colleagues in Sweden for the shipment. We were very pleased when the 165,000 face masks finally left Shanghai on 11 April,” says Richard Molin, Continent APAC Operations.
The masks arrived safely at Örebro University Hospital last week and yesterday, April 20, they were approved for use.
“We are immensely grateful for this gift and the engagement it represents. The large number of face masks is a valuable contribution and supports us in supplying a good and safe healthcare,” comments Claes-Mårten Ingberg, medical director in Region Örebro County.
“We continue to team up with the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai to find more Swedish companies in China that want to join the fight against the corona virus. The situation is changing quickly, and it will become more difficult to secure needed protection equipment as more and more countries are recommending use also for individuals,” says Mark Braithwaite.
