Rome, Italy.- The governor of the Piedmont region, Alberto Cirio, today thanked the Cuban government for helping that Italian territory to face Covid-19.
Speaking to the press on the runway at the Turin-Caselle airport, where he received a brigade of health collaborators from the Caribbean nation, Cirio said it is ‘a great emotion to welcome them.
It is the friendship and solidarity that come from the other part of the ocean, said the governor, who recognized the support of the Specchio dei Tempi Foundation and the Lavazza family for the financing of air transportation, and the contribution of others such as the ‘Agency for the Cultural and Economic Exchange with Cuba ‘.
In a separate conversation with the island’s ambassador to this country, Cirio said that aid is always important, but in these times of so much need it is even more important and stressed the value of the presence of the Cuban brigade in practice.
Along with that, he said, there is the human aspect as a ‘truly great gesture’ and stressed that ‘not only do we welcome your doctors and nurses as brothers’, but ‘we will treat them as brothers today and also when the emergency is overcome’.
For his part, the Cuban ambassador expressed that his compatriots ‘arrive with great humility to join the enormous effort made by Italian health personnel in these weeks and added that’ we are a small country, but with a very important concept of humanity ‘, beyond any other consideration.
Right now we have a huge challenge before us, a pandemic that affects us all and only all of us together can face it, he said.
The brigade of 21 doctors, 16 nurses and a logistics coordinator is the second member of the ‘International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics, Henry Reeve’ sent by Cuba at the request of the Lombardy and Piedmont regions.
The former, made up of 36 doctors, 15 graduates in nursing and a logistics specialist, has been working since March 2 in a field hospital in Crema, a Lombard city of about 34,000 inhabitants