TIRANA – A group of healthcare workers has left for Italy where they will be part of the combat against the coronavirus pandemic in that country. As it is reported the group is composed of 60 doctors and nurses who have followed the example of the first group of 30 healthcare personnel who are working in the frontline in the neighboring country hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some 23,660 people have now been killed by the virus while the total number of the confirmed infected cases is 178,972 in Italy. While the death toll remains high, the number of infections is rising at a slower rate each day and 47,055 patients have recovered. According to the National Higher Health Institute, Italy’s coronavirus curve has reached a plateau but lockdown measures are still needed.
The health minister Ogerta Manastirliu was at the ‘Mother Teresa’ Airport when the second group departed, and it is learned that the cost of this mission will be covered by the Albanian state.
Speaking to the media, one of the nurses said that she is currently unemployed, but like some other friends of her they will be trained in Italy for some days. “We were informed two weeks ago,” one of the nurses Manjola Rama, who was substitute nurse at Tirana University Hospital, told the media before departure. “We decided to help Italy until there will be a vacancy in Albania.” She said that they had not been trained before in Albania. “But I have worked before and know how the work is. We have been told that there will be a training there to start work afterwards. We will go to Rome but the authorities there decide to which hospital we will go,” nurse Rama said, expressing the hope that they will be helpful with their work.
Italy has praised highly the initiative taken by Albania when the first group of 30 healthcare workers was sent to the country considering it as great humanitarian gesture of a small country with a great heart.
Thanking the second group for their action of solidarity in this situation of the pandemic the minister Manastirliu said: “Your contribution is valuable in this situation. It is the moment to show solidarity. All together we will succeed,” she told the medical personnel before their departure. / argumentum.al
