For over a year the activists of a local movement, “the Lampare of the lower Ionian coast of Cosenza”, have occupied a ward of the disused hospital in Cariati, a center with just under 8,000 inhabitants in the province of Cosenza, closed 11 years ago.
The story was told by the Calabrian press and then came to the attention of national and European television networks, up to the networks of countries such as Holland, England, Germany and Scandinavia.
Now to give them a hand comes a living legend of music, Roger Waters, frontman and historical leader of Pink Floyd, the most influential band in the history of Rock. “Open the Cariati hospital now” is the appeal launched in a video by Waters in an Italian just tainted by the Anglo-Saxon accent of the bassist and songwriter, but perfect. The statement, collected by the directors Federico Greco and Mirko Melchiorre, who are making a film on health conditions in the world, is making the rounds of social media after it appeared on the Facebook page of «Lampare».
Calabria, Roger Waters’ appeal for the reopening of the Cariati hospital
“This story reminds me of taking the car, going to Cariati and uncorking a bottle of wine with them and helping them because they need help and they are doing something sacrosanct,” Waters says again. The statement is only part of an interview collected, thanks to the mediation of the English director Ken Loach, by Greco and Melchiorre.
Their new film will soon hit theaters with the title “Once Upon a Time in Italy-Jakarta is Coming.” Federico Greco explains to breaking latest news how a myth of the caliber of Roger Waters learned of the cause of the small town in the Ionian coast of Cosenza.
«The Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza – he says – called Emergency and Gino Strada to lend a hand to deal with the Covid emergency with their field hospitals. We were in contact with Strada and learned of Cariati’s struggle. So we decided to raise the bar to give greater resonance to the story. We have been to Cariati several times – says Greco, whose father is Calabrian from Crotone – following the battle for the hospital, we met the people who are working for this goal and we decided to include the Calabrian municipality in the film as an example of what is happening in Italy and in the world with the privatization of a healthcare system whose shortcomings Covid has dramatically highlighted ”.