Bishops Outfitted With First Aid Kits

Vatican, Taiwanese Embassy Partner to Give Gifts

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VATICAN CITY, OCT. 21, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Participants in the Synod of Bishops for Africa will return to their missions not only with new pastoral plans, but also with first aid kits to guard their health.
 
The Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry collaborated with the Taiwanese embassy to the Holy See to give this gift to the 275 synodal fathers, many of them from African countries.
 
The kits were handed to the prelates by Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, during a break from the assembly’s working sessions.
 
Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the health care council, and Larry Yu-yuan Wang, ambassador of Taiwan, presented a kit to Benedict XVI and to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope’s secretary of state.
 
The medical kit, which among other things contains instruments to measure blood pressure and heart rate, measures under 10-by-8-by-6 inches, so it is easy to transport.
 
Bishop José Luis Redrado, the council’s secretary, explained that the kit was crafted «so that it would be of help on the spot to bishops in their missions, often carried out in conditions of great difficulty and in poor areas, where health structures are lacking.»
 
The kit, he said, is «a sign of solidarity and communion with these populations, including the most remote.»

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