Cars decorated with solemn black ribbons will make their way from Pembroke to Mater Dei Hospital on Sunday afternoon, as part of a cortege organised to highlight the plight of the elderly and their relatives due to COVID-19.
The solemn procession is scheduled to begin at 4.30pm at the Pembroke park-and-ride and will end at the national hospital at around 5.15pm, where candles will be placed at the Statue of Mater Dei. Participants will remain in their cars throughout the cortege, to respect public health rules.
Malta’s COVID-19 death toll has topped the 60-person mark, with the vast majority of those deaths being of elderly, vulnerable people, and as doctors and nurses warn of increasing strains on local healthcare systems.
Cortege organiser Martina Caruana noted that apart from the misery of virus victims, who were deprived the support of their loved ones in their dying hours, relatives of those victims have been “shattered by this traumatic experience.”
“Apart from not taking our health workers, who are making extraordinary personal sacrifices to serve us, for granted we should be showing greater respect towards the elderly. They are citizens who contributed to society, paid their taxes, brought us up and who should be cared for in every way physically and psychologically at these difficult times of their lives,” she said.
Caruana, who has previously organised other events to honour COVID-19 victims and their relatives, urged people to consider whether they were doing all they could to not overburden hospitals, stop the virus spread and avoid premature deaths.
“Do we value the elderly as people with families and loved ones or are they just numbers, people who would have died anyway sooner or later?” she asked.
“And do we acknowledge the fact that the vulnerable are having to make great personal sacrifices to try to ensure their safety because others do not care less and choose to carry on with their own lives regardless?”
She urged anyone who wished to highlight this message to join Sunday’s cortege. Attendants should bring a candle. For further details, visit the event's Facebook page.