In a first for Italy, critically ill patients are being transferred from the nation’s overcrowded hospitals to a neighboring country: Germany is offering Italians the assistance they need while its own hospitals have enough space to accommodate COVID-19 victims.
“I know from my own constituency that the houses of the so-called primary care have indeed put everyone, nursing and medical staff, on standby and imposed vacation breaks,” says Marian Wendt, a Saxon member of the Bundestag – the German parliament. “But many beds are empty now. In this situation we have the opportunity to send signals.”
The first eight Italian coronavirus patients flew out to the Halle-Leipzig Airport this week and are now being treated. Wendt hopes that other areas will join in to help victims in overstressed hospitals if they have the capacity and means to do so.
