The Ridare la Luce mission is carried out in coordination and collaboration between the NGO “Associazione Fatebenefratelli per i Malati Lontani” (AFMAL), the initiator of the initiative, and the Italian Air Force, Alenia Aeronautica (a company of Finmeccanica), the Italian Army, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Higher Institute of Health, volunteers and other private Italian companies. The mission involves the participation of 60 people, including doctors, paramedics, pilots and personnel for logistical support. “Today, the Armed Forces, thanks to their skills and professionalism, continuously dialogue with the Italian social, productive and voluntary realities to do what is necessary, where it is needed and in an effective way,” said General Inspector-in-Chief Ottavio Sarlo, Chief of the Air Force Medical Corps, “and the mission ‘Ridare la Luce’ is a clear example of how our country is able to pool its resources to ”restore life“ to the populations of the Third World in a concrete and direct way, face to face.” There are many new features that characterize the mission; in particular, medical equipment for endoscopic gastrointestinal surgery and for laboratory analysis will be donated, and specific courses for local doctors will be held. The training aspect is very important and will be one of the strengths of the mission. During the two-week stay, a seminar for local doctors and paramedics will be organized on emergency cardio-pulmonary resuscitation techniques and the use of new surgical techniques in abdominal and laparoscopic surgery. Specialized military doctors, attending the Advanced Course in Aeronautical Medicine, will follow a course on the pathologies typical of highly disadvantaged and tropical areas together with the Malian doctors. The issue of the care of infectious diseases is highly relevant and “the Italian Cooperation, in close collaboration with the Infectious Diseases Department of the Higher Institute of Health, is committed to the construction of an ophthalmology clinic at the Gaò Hospital through the construction of an ophthalmology department, the installation of equipment for eye surgery, and a laboratory for analysis, where Italian and Malian doctors will collaborate in the treatment and study of ophthalmic pathologies’, said Dr. Elisabetta Belloni, Head of the General Directorate for Cooperation for Development of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The medical and paramedical staff, both civilian and military, will depart on November 24 from the Airport of Pratica di Mare (Rome) and will operate at the Gaò hospital, a city located on the River Niger, near the border with Nigeria. Equipment, medical supplies and personnel will arrive in Africa with a C-130J from the 46th Air Brigade of Pisa and with the new tactical transport aircraft C-27J from Alenia Aeronautica. ”It is with great pleasure that, this year too, Alenia Aeronautica is making available its technology and its personnel to provide support for an initiative that represents not only a great example of international solidarity and collaboration, but that also reflects the core values of our company’, comments the CEO of Alenia Aeronautica, Ing. Giovanni Bertolone. The ophthalmologists come from the Fatebenefratelli San Pietro Hospitals in Rome, the Isola Tiberina Hospital and the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital in Seville (Spain), from the San Camillo Hospital in Rome and from medical facilities of the Italian Air Force. Together they will operate in Mali in the ophthalmology sector, such as cataract surgery, which in sub-Saharan Africa affects approximately 80 percent of the population in various forms. Since 2003, AFMAL has been carrying out this activity in Mali and, since 2004, with the collaboration of the Air Force, ten missions have been carried out with over 19,000 visits and 3,600 cataract surgeries. “The project ’Ridare la Luce” aims at a very specific goal, that of freeing the children who, from an early age, are used as guides for the blind – said Fra’ Gerardo D’Auria, National Vice President of AFMAL – depriving them of their childhood, of play, of school and of future training. At the same time, we make the adult autonomous by having them acquire sight through the intervention.” Doctors and anesthesiologists from the military medical facilities, both of the Air Force and the Army, from the Higher Institute of Health, from the Nuova Itor clinic in Rome, from the La Sapienza and Tor Vergata University at Fatebenefratelli and from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee (USA) will work alongside them.
Multimedia content Audio: Area Agency Audio: New Spazio Radio on Thursday 3 December Audio: Gaeta GR1
