Give help and media resonance to Dr. Bartolo and Lampedusa health services for Refugees.
The Issue
How many migrants have passed under your eyes?
“I never kept a record on that because for me they are all people and not numbers, but they’ve told me they’re more than 250,000 in a period of 25 years. From the first landing of three Tunisians on a boat to seven thousand in 2011, in a single week, during the year of the Arab Spring, whom invaded Lampedusa. They were a lot more of the island's population. The people of Lampedusa opened their homes, gave them clothes, food, beds, affection. Lampedusani’s in that occasion showed to the whole world their big hearts " (La Repubblica 22.02.2016).
This is the official statement of Dr. Pietro Bartolo, after having attended the award ceremony of the Berlinale for the film "Fuocoammare" by Gianfranco Rosi, who won a Golden Bear. Fuocoammare film trailer
Having been in charge since 1993 of the health center of Lampedusa bestowed on him by Palermo ASP, Pietro Bartolo has been the human core of the first aid efforts to migrants arriving on the island for the past 25 years. For the umpteenth time, and on national television in Fabio Fazio’s talk show, Dr. Bartolo had to state the conditions under which he is forced to work every day, with the help of only one other doctor (sometimes they are 2) and a team of ambulance volunteers and a first aid nurse.
"B: For emergencies there are, those people I mentioned it before. I'm there at the harbor with another doctor- sometimes two doctors- and then there is the emergency doctor with a nurse back at the ER building, then we take the refugees there, and there we do all the rest.
F: But it's normal, I'm sorry, is this normal?
B: Absolutely not. I already asked reinforcements and presented a project where there had to be at least ten doctors, paramedics, infectious disease specialists, social workers, psychologists because these people also need these figures!
F: I would think so!
B: .. Because unfortunately, these are people that land here, are also devastated on a psychological point of view, because there's people who have been tortured, people who have been injuried, people who have been raped. You should know that most of the pregnant women who get here -almost all- are pregnant because they were raped, especially in Libya where they usually remain held hostages for a year and perhaps sometimes even more, and of course in those imprisonment camps happen this things which they tell me.
F: What do you do to these women, an ultrasound?
B: I take all the pregnant women who come here, even at night, I take them ALL from the harbor to the clinic, where they undrego to an ultrasound, and I do this for several reasons. One of them is because I know wether this woman is healthy or not, maybe she is fine but do not know how the baby is doing, that’s why I need to know. But basically I do this because, eh, when I do an ultrasound that lasts ten, fifteen, twenty minutes (sometimes I can make it last longer) those are ten minutes, twenty minutes of happiness, of joy, and I try to make this women forget what they had to go through only half an hour before. "(taken from tv show “Che tempo che fa” aired on RAI 3, Sunday, March 6, 2016.)
Pietro Bartolo is not only a hard worker, but it is an Italian hero who devoted his entire life and has concentrated all its efforts to manage an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Helping him is a moral duty.
Pietro Bartolo for years has proposed a project, he needs to be sent a dozen of doctors in Lampedusa, infectious disease specialists, gynecologists, surgeons, nurses, psychologists social workers and cultural mediators.
These are minimum requirements which everyone should agree to, it is the least the government can do to improve the situation of the island, not only for migrants but also for the 6,299 stable inhabitants. The Ministers of Health and the Interior must intervene and finally put an end to this Italian nonsense.
The Issue
How many migrants have passed under your eyes?
“I never kept a record on that because for me they are all people and not numbers, but they’ve told me they’re more than 250,000 in a period of 25 years. From the first landing of three Tunisians on a boat to seven thousand in 2011, in a single week, during the year of the Arab Spring, whom invaded Lampedusa. They were a lot more of the island's population. The people of Lampedusa opened their homes, gave them clothes, food, beds, affection. Lampedusani’s in that occasion showed to the whole world their big hearts " (La Repubblica 22.02.2016).
This is the official statement of Dr. Pietro Bartolo, after having attended the award ceremony of the Berlinale for the film "Fuocoammare" by Gianfranco Rosi, who won a Golden Bear. Fuocoammare film trailer
Having been in charge since 1993 of the health center of Lampedusa bestowed on him by Palermo ASP, Pietro Bartolo has been the human core of the first aid efforts to migrants arriving on the island for the past 25 years. For the umpteenth time, and on national television in Fabio Fazio’s talk show, Dr. Bartolo had to state the conditions under which he is forced to work every day, with the help of only one other doctor (sometimes they are 2) and a team of ambulance volunteers and a first aid nurse.
"B: For emergencies there are, those people I mentioned it before. I'm there at the harbor with another doctor- sometimes two doctors- and then there is the emergency doctor with a nurse back at the ER building, then we take the refugees there, and there we do all the rest.
F: But it's normal, I'm sorry, is this normal?
B: Absolutely not. I already asked reinforcements and presented a project where there had to be at least ten doctors, paramedics, infectious disease specialists, social workers, psychologists because these people also need these figures!
F: I would think so!
B: .. Because unfortunately, these are people that land here, are also devastated on a psychological point of view, because there's people who have been tortured, people who have been injuried, people who have been raped. You should know that most of the pregnant women who get here -almost all- are pregnant because they were raped, especially in Libya where they usually remain held hostages for a year and perhaps sometimes even more, and of course in those imprisonment camps happen this things which they tell me.
F: What do you do to these women, an ultrasound?
B: I take all the pregnant women who come here, even at night, I take them ALL from the harbor to the clinic, where they undrego to an ultrasound, and I do this for several reasons. One of them is because I know wether this woman is healthy or not, maybe she is fine but do not know how the baby is doing, that’s why I need to know. But basically I do this because, eh, when I do an ultrasound that lasts ten, fifteen, twenty minutes (sometimes I can make it last longer) those are ten minutes, twenty minutes of happiness, of joy, and I try to make this women forget what they had to go through only half an hour before. "(taken from tv show “Che tempo che fa” aired on RAI 3, Sunday, March 6, 2016.)
Pietro Bartolo is not only a hard worker, but it is an Italian hero who devoted his entire life and has concentrated all its efforts to manage an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Helping him is a moral duty.
Pietro Bartolo for years has proposed a project, he needs to be sent a dozen of doctors in Lampedusa, infectious disease specialists, gynecologists, surgeons, nurses, psychologists social workers and cultural mediators.
These are minimum requirements which everyone should agree to, it is the least the government can do to improve the situation of the island, not only for migrants but also for the 6,299 stable inhabitants. The Ministers of Health and the Interior must intervene and finally put an end to this Italian nonsense.
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Petition created on 18 March 2016