Coronavirus: The Solidarity Medicine clinic reopens in Tor Bella Monaca

You write it “low-access community medicine”, it is read “guarantee the right to health”For everyone, especially those who, for various reasons, are left behind. There's no need to travel miles; the need for quality, compassionate, free, and local care is also present in our cities, and the examples of compassionate medicine are numerous and very valid. Driven by the goodwill and expertise of doctors, male and female, and nurses who offer their services to the community. With double altruism. 

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SOLIDARITY MEDICINE ROME

This happens in Tor Bella Monaca, for example, on the eastern outskirts of Rome, on the north side of the Casilina. A handful of kilometers from Termini station and the center of Rome, from which it's only a twenty-minute drive, traffic permitting. It's widely known as one of the city's most problematic neighborhoods due to its history of crime and drug trafficking: yet, as always, The bright side of the suburbs lies in the large-scale solidarity projects that animate them. Such as the Institute of Solidarity Medicine, founded in 2003, with the aim of ensuring access to healthcare for all those who cannot afford it: illegal immigrants, migrants, and low-income earners. Solidarity Medicine clinics attempt to cover the entire city, from the Vatican area, where the San Francesco Clinic is located, to the Center for Solidarity Medicine and Migration, opened in Tor Bella Monaca. From its inception, it signed agreements with the Polyclinic and the Medical School of the University of Tor Vergata, and began operating at full capacity in various areas of Rome's suburbs, from Tor Bella Monaca itself to Tor Pignattara, including Borgata Finocchio and Torre Angela. Many students complete their internships at the Institute, including How necessary it is to have medicine that is closer to the most vulnerable, to local communities, to pockets of vulnerability. That medicine is not just diagnosis and prescriptions, but also empathy, human closeness to all those who, for one reason or another, are excluded from the National Health System, despite Article 32.

For 16 years, Medicina Solidale has brought together doctors, nurses, and all healthcare professionals to offer free outpatient care, diagnostic and social-health services, and, above all, a safe place where they can be heard and recognized. Which is the thing most often denied to patients with a history of hardship: like a Romanian woman with advanced cervical cancer that went untreated because she couldn't obtain a renewal of her residency permit. For her, every minute meant life, and only when she was discouraged and abandoned by the institutions did she turn to the clinic. A little over two weeks later, she was already undergoing chemotherapy. Her story had a happy ending, and every now and then she returns to see the doctors who treated her without unnecessary procedures, expensive and inconclusive tests, and bureaucratic obstacles.

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TOR BELLA MONACA STREET CLINIC

Medicina Solidale's journey, however, has not been an easy one, often encountering the blindness and cynicism of institutions, especially the city hall and the City of Rome. In October 2018, an email ended the Tor Bella Monaca street clinic: in it, the relevant municipality demanded the return of the premises, despite the significant numbers of people who provided assistance, including social and food assistance.

Many small stories of social or health emergencies that have become enormous with the Coronavirus crisis. The pandemic has hit the areas already in difficulty much harder: at full capacity, with 5 mobile clinics and fixed facilities, around 100,000 people turn to Medicina Solidale. 13 people a year, including 2000 children. That experience certainly couldn't be wasted, and fortunately, for once, foresight prevailed. Last April, in fact, the councilor for social policies of the Municipality of Rome, Veronica Mammì has decided to return the health facility to the community in an effort to stem the COVID-19 emergency. Lucia Ercoli, director of the Institute of Solidarity Medicine and Migration, welcomed the department's decision., applauding the sensitivity shown. "The virus," he declared in an interview with Roma Sette, "has hit the most vulnerable hard. The elderly, patients with chronic, debilitating conditions, and the immunocompromised. And hospitals have been overwhelmed by the emergency, to the point of having to reduce their care for other conditions, which are no less serious, less aggressive, or less lethal. Hospitals are for emergencies; healthcare must protect the most vulnerable; healthcare must integrate with social services for the most marginalized."

(Featured image from Roma Sette // Photocredits Roma Sette)

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