The police in Bergamo, a city in northern Italy particularly affected by the coronavirus, decided to help the patients with coronavirus by redistributing the oxygen cylinders of those who did not survive.
The hospitals in the department of Bergamo (Lombardy), the most affected in Italy with more than 6,000 cases, are crowded and suffer from a cruel lack of oxygen bottles.
Between Sunday and Monday, the police announced that they had collected "more than 250 bottles of oxygen from the homes of people who have died in recent days, or from pharmacies".
The bottles were immediately filled and delivered to the homes of 250 patients, the Bergamo police said in a statement.
A video released by the police shows officers unloading white bottles from the back of a police van on a parking lot, before leaving in police cars for delivery.
These measures were taken in response to the desperate call from patients who are fighting viral pneumonia at home.
More than 6,000 Italians have died from coronavirus since the announcement of the first victim in the country a month ago.
Bergamo had to face so many deaths that the local morgues were overwhelmed, forcing the Italian army to use its trucks to deliver coffins in an emergency.