Save mothers and children in the Mediterranean Sea

My name is Giulia, I am a midwife volunteering for Fondazione Rava, am writing this during my second experience aboard ship Borsini, engaged in the Safe Sea Operation.

The warmth with which I and my colleague Luca, nurse of intensive care unit, were greeted by the Navy crew was so touching, it seems to me never to have left.

Fondazione Rava and the Italian Navy have been three years together in the Mediterranean Sea saving lives and providing specialized medical assistance to mothers and children. 

I really want to emphasize the dedication of the Italian Navy (truly  "professionals of the oceans") for their work. It's a work of a shocking humanity. In three years of lasting emergency it's been 200 of us doctors nurses midwives of Fondazione Rava being part of this incredibile team. Day in day out.

During our navigation so far we have managed 112 people in all, due to bad weather conditions there has been few adventuring at sea; usually the count is much higher. One boat with several women, some children and a 12-day-old infant. Their health conditions were generally good.

I was able to observe and be part not of the management of the drama but rather the management of the routine. Emergency calls happen almost every day but for those of us who work on Italian Navy ships this is  daily work. The routine when it has to do with people is not actual routine: emotions are intense, pressure is high, it's a matter of death or life. Always. Night and day. 365 days a year. 

Then you see apprehension in the eyes of each other as we observe the overloaded raft from a distance, the delicacy with which a woman is helped to climb a rope ladder, the commotion of a military man in front of an infant a few days  old cuddled in the arms of his girl mother, you feel concern for the colleagues who are out there in the dark, in the waves, you tremble for those who are still inside that raft that may collapse any moment, you sense the indecision of those who must choose how much milk to prepare for that little boy sitting over there, you try to reassure a pregnant mother by giving her ultrasound checks and monitoring her all the time ... nothing eclatant, only the work of all the days in a row we have been here at sea to save lives.

In reality we manage such a complexity of cases, such a complexity. Still, it feels so simple to be here. We need to be here.

Keep supporting us.

I wish everyone a peaceful Christmas from the Southern Mediterranean.

Giulia, o/b Nave Borsini, December 2016