ROME, NOV. 28, 2012 (Zenit.org).- An exchange of gifts at the offices of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers took place alone with the reaffirmation of the commitment to the collaboration with the Good Samaritan Foundation, in a more incisive way, for the benefit of populations that would otherwise be lacking medical care and drugs.
The meeting, which took place at Palazzo S. Paolo, was presided over by Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, and constitutes one of the salient moments of the three days mission in Rome.
The event was organized by the leadership of the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB), a charitable organization of the United States, with missionary objectives in the health sector, celebrating a hundred years of existence this year. The CMMB delegation, which was received this morning in the audience by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, includes among others, the current President Mr. Bruce Wilkinson and his predecessor, Mr. John F. Galbraith.
The CMMB was founded in 1912, in New York, by Dr. Paluel J. Flagg and among its activities it includes sending out volunteer medical staff and collection of donated drugs, which are then distributed to needy populations.
Its collaboration with the Good Samaritan Foundation started in 2010, and has already made shipments of numerous containers loaded with essential drugs, like antibiotics possible, in part due to the collaboration of Apostolic Nunciatures and local Bishops. The beneficiaries of these services are health care centers of the Catholic Church, operating in the poor and remote areas of ten African Countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Congo Brazzaville and Congo Kinshasa, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.
