Lombardy emotionally says goodbye to the Cuban doctors’ brigade who fought side by side against COVID-19 in the region.

The Cuban doctors completed their mission in the town of Crema (north) and were cheered by the neighbors and local authorities, according to the EFE report.

“We were castaways and we were helped without asking ourselves the name or provenance. After months of mourning, anguish and doubts we now see the light”
said Stefania Bonaldi, mayor of the municipality of Crema, in the Lombardy region, the most affected by the virus in the country.

The group of health professionals consisted of 37 doctors and 15 nurses, who arrived in the town on 22 March last, to work in a field hospital set up in the municipality at the beginning of the crisis and which will begin to be dismantled on Monday.

During their stay, the Cuban team worked in the Crema Intensive Care units and the radiology, pneumology and pharmacy departments.

For their hard and effective work the professionals of the island were cheered by the neighbours and local authorities with a ceremony in the central square of the Cathedral of Crema. In addition, they received commemorative plaques and medals with the flags of Italy and Cuba and on the back it read: “To our Cuban brothers of the ‘Henry Reeve’ brigade with infinite esteem and eternal recognition. The city of Crema”.

The city councillor said the help of these Cubans came in “a moment of unheard of uncertainty and danger” and they proved “an effective medicine.”

“Coming here you said that your homeland is the world and from now on you will be our compatriots in this great world, often mistreated by the absence of the supreme value of solidarity,” added the mayor, protected with a mask.

The event was attended by Cuba’s ambassador to Italy, José Carlos Rodríguez Ruiz, who recalled this medical contingent instituted in 2005 served in disasters such as the Ebola crisis or earthquakes in Pakistan or Haiti.