Alessandro Di Battista remains hospitalized at the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in Havana after falling ill last Friday in Santa Clara. He is alert and communicating, but his condition is still described as serious and, at least for the moment, Cuban doctors do not consider him transferable. The government had made a medical plane available, a flight paid for by the state, which has sparked controversy in the last few hours. The former M5S deputy would have rejected the offer.
The Foreign Minister himself, Antonio Tajani, had a telephone conversation with Di Battista, explaining that Italy is guaranteeing maximum assistance. The Italian ambassador to Cuba, Simona De Martino, went to the hospital to acquire information on the health conditions and ensure liaison with the authorities and the Cuban healthcare structure.
The context: how is Di Battista
On Sunday Di Battista made himself heard on social media, also to reassure about his health conditions. After having commented in the morning on a post by the Neapolitan pizza chef Gino Sorbillo, underlining his desire to see him soon after receiving his invitation to Naples, in the evening – Italian time – he also shared a story on Instagram against the genocide in Gaza. Di Battista spoke in recent hours on the phone with Antonio Tajani, who found his “combative tone” and who assured him that the government will do everything necessary, as for every Italian citizen in similar situations.
Alessandro Di Battista was in Cuba where he was involved in a reportage on the conditions on the island for Il Fatto Quotidiano and TvLoft, as part of the ‘The Dust of the World’ project. Before the illness, he would have suffered a severe headache. Last Friday he was hospitalized in Santa Clara and then transferred about 24 hours later by ambulance to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in Havana for more in-depth tests, including a CT scan with contrast. According to informed sources, the former parliamentarian spoke with healthcare personnel and regained consciousness before being transported to the capital.
Meanwhile, Alessandro Di Battista’s partner, Sahra Lahouasnia has arrived in Havana. A health team from the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome has also arrived in the Cuban capital ready to provide medical assistance and possibly evaluate his conditions in order to determine when he can return to Italy, since until now he has been considered “non-transferable”.
Because Di Battista would be entitled to a state flight
The regulatory reference is the directive of the Presidency of the Council of 23 September 2011 signed by Silvio Berlusconi. It establishes that state air transport contributes to the “safeguarding of human life and health”, recalling articles 2 and 32 of the Constitution.
The provision provides for a state flight for humanitarian reasons dedicated to Italians “in situations of serious danger connected to epidemics or other serious disasters, if other modes of transport, public or private, suitable to satisfy the transfer need are not available”. As a rule, it is specified in the directive, this occurs “in European areas or within the Mediterranean basin, having regard to the technical characteristics of the aircraft dedicated to the service and the financial sustainability of the same”.
But there are also cases in which the embassy or consulate assists Italians with repatriation procedures with scheduled flights or, if impossible, with private companies with an air ambulance service. These are “medical repatriations”: the essential condition is the so-called “fit to fly”, i.e. the certification attesting to the patient’s air transportability in conditions considered safe. The general secretary of the Presidency of the Council and the undersecretary with responsibility for state flights are responsible for the authorization process. The authorization, underlined by Palazzo Chigi, is granted only following a rigorous verification.
Who pays for the shipping
In these cases, repatriations paid for by the Treasury are limited to proven indigence verified by the diplomatic-consular network, otherwise the subscription of loans with a promise of repayment is envisaged. The direct costs are borne by the Air Force. It is no coincidence that many embassies, especially in countries with more complicated connections, recommend on their websites that Italians take out a health insurance policy that also includes medical repatriation.
A repatriation of this type would not be exceptional: as reported by Ansa, those for health reasons are already 57 in 2026 and range from 27 last year to 112 in 2018. More numerous than humanitarian state flights, 5 this year, just over 8 on average from 2018 to 2025.
At the moment, both he and the 5 Star Movement would have refused a state flight: all expenses will be covered by insurance or, in this case, by the party and Il Fatto Quotidiano, for which he was writing a report. For information purposes only, an air ambulance from Asia or the United States to Italy can exceed 50 thousand euros, while the cost doubles from the most remote destinations in Africa or South America.