The doctors from the Military Medical Institute in Warsaw and paramedics from the Polish Center for International Aid were to be flown out aboard a military aircraft on a mission lasting until April 9.
They will help patients in a field hospital in the city of Brescia in the northern Italian region of Lombardy.
The Polish team will relieve local staff treating coronavirus patients and will gain experience in fighting the Covid-19 disease, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency has reported.
The head of the Polish Center for International Aid, Wojciech Wilk, said: “I hope that the mission by Polish doctors will be both an expression of solidarity and concrete help for the Italian healthcare system, which is struggling with the coronavirus epidemic.”
All members of the Polish team have tested negative for the coronavirus. After returning home they will have to spend two weeks in quarantine.
Italian officials said on Sunday evening that a total of 10,779 people had died in that country from the Covid-19 disease, more than a third of all deaths from the virus worldwide.
In Poland, 22 people have died while 1,862 have been infected, officials said late on Sunday.
(pk/gs)
Source: Polish Radio/IAR