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Contribution to peace, commitment to medical care

Grand Master Dalla Torre receives Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine

Rome, 3 December 2018

Grand Master greets the President of the State of Palestine 

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, is received by Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre, Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta, at the Magistral Palace, Rome.

During the talks, the Grand Master recalled the Order of Malta’s commitment in Palestine, confirmed ‘by the invaluable work carried out daily in our Bethlehem hospital, a benchmark for neonatal intensive care throughout the region’. He stressed the importance of peaceful co-existence and ‘the Order of Malta’s commitment to continuing its health and social activities and promoting the development of the region’.

President Mahmoud Abbas expressed his appreciation for the Order of Malta’s important initiatives in the medical sector in Palestine, and the contribution to peace, by building bridges. 
A Memorandum of Understanding to provide humanitarian aid to third countries was signed during the visit. Over recent years, Palestinian doctors working in the Order’s Bethlehem hospital have run training and refresher courses in neonatal care for colleagues in the Order’s Njombé hospital, north-west Cameroon. 

The Order’s specialist hospital in Palestine

The Order of Malta has run the Holy Family Hospital, Bethlehem, since 1990. The Hospital, which delivers 4,000 infants annually, has the only neonatal intensive care unit on the West Bank.