The Red Cross Society of Hubei Province is in the eye of a public opinion storm for its opaque handling of donated materials.

The nongovernmental organization has allocated 16,000 masks to a small private hospital in Wuhan, capital of the province, and 3,000 masks to the largest public hospital in the city where most people infected with the novel coronavirus are to be treated.

Large amounts of badly needed medical equipment and materials donated from around the world have been found lying idle in the society's warehouse, while all major hospitals and tens of millions of residents in the province are crying out for them.

Many local hospitals have complained about the red-tape of the organization. Not to mention there are a number of easy-to-find statistical mismatches in the information it has disclosed on what it has received and handed out.

Although the Hubei Red Cross Society quickly apologized for its "internal management problems" on Sunday, soon after the Red Cross Society of China sent inspectors to investigate its possible problems, people are justified in suspecting that the low efficiency may be a sign of possible corruption and that the organization has turned into an obstacle to the cause it should be assisting.

The organization has admitted that due to the lack of manpower, it cannot send the donated materials as quickly as the people expect it to, and claims that the requirement for it to be fair, transparent and accurate in the distribution of the materials has unavoidably compromised its efficiency.

It is necessary to engage third-party supervisors to strengthen oversight over the Red Cross Society system in the country, as this is not the first time that its integrity and professionalism have been questioned by the public in recent years.

And, given the urgent needs of those on the front line in the war with the pandemic, the Red Cross Society of China should increase its manpower in its branch in the province to ensure it can operate efficiently so as to realize seamless docking between donors and needy parties.