Fire Lt. Justin McCarthy, David Youtz with boxes masks.
Amid worsening tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments, a city-to-city international friendship remains strong — as large boxes containing 10,000 surgical masks arrived here in New Haven as a gift from our sister city Changsha.
Four boxes went to the New Haven Regional Fire Training Academy, where they will be used by Emergency Medical Services workers in New Haven. One box was sent to the Yale School of Nursing, which has relied heavily on the city of Changsha to supply their nursing students with personal protective equipment during the pandemic.
This is not the first shipment to travel between Changsha and New Haven. Xiangya Hospital in Changsha had already made two earlier shipments to New Haven, most recently in May. And Chinese-American groups in Connecitcut, including an organization of Xiangya medical school alumni in Connecticut, also sent PPE to Changsha in January and February.
In total, about 200,000 items of PPE, including surgical gowns, shields, gloves, and N‑95 masks, have been donated to New Haven from its Chinese sister city, estimated David Youtz, who is the New Haven head of the sister city partnership.
Changsha’s donations to the Yale School of Nursing have so far constituted a majority of PPE supplies for their students, who rely on them when they complete their degree-required clinical hours working in the city’s hospitals. This most recent shipment of over 2000 surgical masks adds on to the hundreds of N‑95 masks, gowns, face masks, and goggles provided by the Chinese city, free-of-charge, to the School of Nursing.
Marcia Thomas, associate dean at the Yale School of Nursing, explained that New Haven’s hospitals have been experiencing shortages of PPE, and so the nursing school has had to provide students with the equipment by themselves.
“It’s given us a little bit of breathing room,” said Thomas. “It takes a bit of the pressure off our own healthcare system.”
Contributed Photos
On March 27, as the U.S. East Coast coronavirus cases began to climb, Changsha city’s Foreign Affairs Office reached out to the Yale-China Association, a Yale-based non-profit organization founded in 1901. “Changsha planned to donate masks to New Haven city government to support citizens in the fight against the virus,” wrote the city’s representative, Huang Yang.
The most recent shipment of surgical masks was meant to arrived in May but was delayed for unknown reasons at customs checkpoints in China as well as in the U.S., where it passed through John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
The boxes were each emblazoned with a sticker that read in English and Chinese: “True unity inspires people to work as one to overcome adversity.”
Youtz, president of the Yale-China Association and head of the China Sister City Committee in New Haven, characterized the donation as a gesture of goodwill and a commemoration of a 100-year-old relationship between New Haven and Changsha.
Ties between the two cities dates back to 1914, when Xiangya Medical College was founded through a collaboration between the Hunan Yuqun Society and the Yale-China Association, which aimed to develop China-related educational programs in and deepen understanding between Chinese and American people.
Yale representatives had a presence in Hunan Province from as early as 1903 in a process that Historian Reuben Holden describes as “a logical outgrowth” of Yale’s educational mission. Before that, in 1905, Edward Hume, an American physician, arrived in Changsha to practice medicine. He established the “Yali Hospital” or “Yale Hospital”, one of the first hospitals for Western medicine in China.
Since 1979, the Yale-China Association and the hospital have continued to enjoy a relationship. It was this relationship that spurred the development of the sister city partnership between New Haven and Changsha. In 2018, then-Mayor Toni Harp traveled to Changsha to officially establish the relationship between the city and New Haven.
Youtz explained that unlike in the U.S., where sister city relationships tend to be just a “friendship on paper,: Chinese local governments see them as a special bond.
Yale-China Association
The first class of Yali College in Changsha graduated in 1912.
He pointed out the sharp contrast between the civic ties between the Chinese city and New Haven and the worsening hostility between the two national governments.
This week, as Youtz was receiving the life-saving gift from Changsha, the U.S. consulate in Chengdu was being shut down. President Trump closed China’s consulate in Houston, continued referring to Covid-19 as the “Kung-Flu,” blamed the coronavirus on China, and maintained sanctions on Chinese goods, including medical supplies.
“There are people more cynical than me that would say this is propaganda by the Chinese government, and maybe there is an aspect of that, of course this makes some Chinese people look good,” said Youtz. “But I tend to feel these actions, helping people in a crisis, these don’t feel like propaganda to me. It feels like a genuine gesture and a wish to get PPE where it is needed.”
Yale School of Nursing Associate Dean Thomas credited Changsha with enabling the students to complete their degree requirements by sending over much-needed PPE.
“I think it represents a breaking down of boundaries and the ability of people to work together for the common good and to support one another no matter the country, fighting such an important pandemic,” said Thomas. “For us in the healthcare industry, it has been a beautiful relationship.”