(ANSA) - Milan, April 2 - The northern region of Lombardy, by far the worst hit by the coronavirus, has only received "crumbs" from the central government in Rome for the last month and a half, Governor Attilio Fontana said Thursday.
"Almost a month and a half have passed since the start of the epidemic and substantially, we have only been receiving crumbs from Rome," he told Radio Padania, the broadcaster of his nationalist League party.
"If we hadn't rolled our sleeves up ourselves, we would have closed the hospitals within two days.
"The number of masks that were arriving from the civil protection wouldn't have enable us to open the hospitals. This is a disgrace, we only got a small part of what we had requested."
Regionals Affairs Minister Francesco Boccia responded that "the State is doing all it can, socially for Lombardy".
Fontana shot back: "the region did much, much more (than Rome)."
Fontana added that Wednesday had been another "positive day" and experts expected "this blessed descent" in the virus curce to start "within days".