Vidas, the association that provides assistance to the terminally ill

Live with dignity until the very end. Without wasting a single moment of your life, even when you're at the end. Since 1982. the Vidas association is concerned with giving free and comprehensive assistance to terminally ill patients, accompanying them, caring for them (including with palliatives), and trying to ensure they lack nothing. The terminally ill are cared for by 450 Vidas staff, including healthcare workers and volunteers, amounting to 250 per day: a huge number, which indicates the extraordinary importance of this battleship in the world of volunteering in Italy. Vidas, today led by Antonio Benedetti, general director, and Ferruccio de Bortoli, president, was founded by Giovanna Gavazzoni, an extraordinary woman for her energy, social commitment, and achievements. Gavazzoni, the former wife of conductor Claudio Abbado, he dedicated much of his life to othersAn attitude he must have inherited from his father, who came from Emilia to Milan with a cart full of household goods and became an entrepreneur and banker, as well as the founder of Don Orione's Piccolo Cottolengo. And that then blossomed over the years, thanks in part to a life experience that sparked a desire to care for the terminally ill.

His great feat in fact, it was born during the years of adolescence, when Giovanna decides to care for her mother's friend, Rina Torricelli, in the last months of her life as she battles cancer. Torricelli is a chorister at La Scala and lives near the Cavazzoni family. Young Giovanna decides to stay close to her because that woman had encouraged her to pursue her great passion for singing, inviting her to study at the conservatory. So every free moment she has, she runs to her. While caring for her, however, the sixteen-year-old decides to write down all her needs in order to understand how best to help herThanks to this exercise, she discovers, for example, that the doctor shouldn't stand upright, but rather be close to the patient. This is, in fact, the only way the patient can empathize with their caregiver, overcoming mistrust and modesty to ask the question all terminally ill patients long to ask: "Doctor, how much time do I have left?" A lesson that young Giovanna carries with her throughout her life and that resurfaces decades later. Once she turned fifty, in fact, she decided to follow through on the promise she had made to herself upon the death of her choir friend: to create a charity capable of assisting the terminally ill. This dream took shape in 1982, when she decided to put aside her job at her public relations firm in Milan to launch Vidas.

In addition to this, you need to know more about it.

The Vidas Association

Since the beginning one of the pillars of the foundation has been thecompletely free assistance for patients, which is why it takes a huge effort to raise funds, which Giovanna Cavazzoni manages to assemble with incredible skill. Thus, the association has grown from caring for 20 patients in its early years to serving over 200 today, in a context where great professionalism goes hand in hand with humanity. "Giovanna Cavezzoni – he said in a recent interview the current president Ferruccio De Bortoli – claimed that Terminally ill patients are not rejects and deserve genuine affection“For this reason, the association is committed to providing social and health care that can transform the last moments of life that these people have ahead of them. in quality timeRecreational and cultural activities are organized, as well as pet therapy. And the hospice, which can accommodate up to 20 patients, is designed as a hotel where not only the patient but also the entire family can find their own intimacy.

How it works

Most of the association's funding comes from 5 per thousand, although donations and bequests also have a specific weight. Patients who are followed make direct requests or are referred by the hospitals themselves. At the moment Vidas assists 1800 patients every year in Milan, Monza, and 112 surrounding municipalities. Assistance is provided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by social and health teams composed of specialized professionals. pain therapy and palliative care and by selected and trained volunteers. The goal is to guarantee the patient's right to live even the last moments of life with dignity. But not only that, the association is also fighting to contribute to the development of an integrated social and healthcare model and to make its comprehensive and free care model available in other Italian and foreign settings. Meanwhile, this spring, another of Giovanna Cavazzoni's great dreams will open: a pediatric hospice, where not only the child but the entire family, affected by the child's incurable disease, will be cared for.

How to donate to Vidas

The term make a donation to vidas It's very simple: you can give €2 by texting 45583, or €10 or €20 by calling from a landline. You can then make a bank transfer or postal order through the Vidas website to finance specialist visits and medication purchases.