18/06/2002

The "Tower of Pisa" in Mozambique to stop Aids
Health co-operation between the Hospital of Santa Chiara, Pisa and the Community of Sant�Egidio.

Italy has cancelled the debt owed to it by Mozambique following the FAO summit in Rome, which noted the barely-kept promises of rich countries towards poor ones. The urgency of a strong return to international cooperation was felt. There isn�t just indispensable aid between states. This is what is learned from an official press release of the Community of Sant�Egidio.

An important Italian hospital, the Santa Chiara Hospital of Pisa, headed by Dr. Bizzarri, indeed shows that an effective health co-operation in Africa can be conducted by investing resources in education and in sending materials for diagnosing and treating. The first concrete plan in which Santa Chiara Hospital will collaborate will be the programme for the fight against Aids that the Community of Sant�Egidio is leading in Mozambique. This was announced today at a meeting in Rome at the center of the Community with a delegation from the Hospital.

It is an additional step on the road of an effective collaboration between the Community of Sant�Egidio and the Hospital of Pisa, where people from the poorest countries of the world are treated, especially children. The Hospital can do this thanks to Resolution 313/2001 of the Tuscany Region that allows all Tuscan hospital to organize a co-operation in four ways: education of health workers in the third World, sending Tuscan health workers to developing countries, treating children and adults from these countries, sending materials that are no longer used by Tuscan hospitals but that can still be used in places where they are needed. All four activities will be financed by the Tuscany Region. The Santa Chaira Hospital of Pisa has thus begun such an activity by becoming a partner of the Community of Sant�Egidio in the programme for fighting Aids in Mozambique.