Assistance for Migrants, Refugees, and People in Need

Our Outpatient Clinics offer free basic and specialist medical services and socio-sanitary assistance to facilitate access to the healthcare system to those who need it.

Cultural mediators inform patients about their rights, help them access the public health service, accompany them in case they have to undergo visits or specialist examinations at public facilities, deal with the documents for issuing STP codes (Temporarily Present Foreigner) and ENI (non registered European citizens), guaranteeing access to the public health service for foreigners and EU citizens.

EMERGENCY’s Outpatient Clinics are staffed by volunteers and qualified medical personnel, able to issue prescriptions for drugs and perform specialist examinations. The aim of our network of Outpatient Clinics in Italy is to ensure that the most vulnerable do not fall through the cracks, but instead are empowered to access the services that are guaranteed to them by law.

All the services provided by the Outpatient Clinics are free of charge.

Our first Outpatient Clinic opened in Palermo in 2006, providing over 100,000 consultations.

Marghera

Since opening in 2010, many migrants from the area – primarily from Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan and Northern Africa, and Bangladesh – come to the Marghera clinic. But not only them: about one in five patients is Italian.

Sassari

In order to overcome the obstacles preventing individuals from accessing adequate medical treatment – such as language barriers or inadequate knowledge of rights to public healthcare – in 2012 we opened a Socio-Medical Support and Information Point in Sassari, where our cultural mediators informed patients about their rights and assisted them through the administrative process. The Information Point became an Outpatient Clinic in 2016.

A second Information Point, dedicated to information and prevention education, began in 2019. It became a Nursing Outpatient Clinic in 2021.

Calabria

We had begun working in the area in 2011 with a Mobile Clinic to provide assistance in a region where agricultural production continues to be a significant part of the economy, and the labour force is often comprised of underpaid and exploited foreign workers. Our Outpatient Clinic in Polistena opened in 2013, treating many labourers who suffer from musculoskeletal pain and other pathologies from difficult living and working conditions. Over nine years of activity, we provided 44,459 services to over 7,000 people in Polistena.

In April 2022, we transitioned the Outpatient Clinic to our Polibus Mobile Clinic to provide more direct access to care in multiple locations. Since the transition, our team has provided over 2,500 services.

Castel Volturno

We have been active in this area since 2013 with our Mobile Clinic. It was estimated that foreigners represented up to one-third of the population in this area in 2010; figures now report resident foreigners around 17.5 per cent, but these numbers do not include those withhout residence permits.

Our Outpatient Clinic activities ended here in 2020 thanks to cooperation with the local health authorities. We continue to run a Socio-Medical Support and Information Point to inform patients of their rights and assist them in accessing the national health service.

Between 2015 and 2023, our staff ran a paediatric service to guarantee medical treatment and socio-medical guidance to 1,021 children followed by EMERGENCY’s paediatricians, for a total of 6,290 services.

Since June 2022, we have conducted a home nursing and social support project. We carry out health education and empowerment interventions with both caregivers and patients, indicating how best to continue the therapies.

Naples

In addition to the usual services provided at the Outpatient Clinics, the Naples facility also offers a nursing clinic and psychological support services. It has been operational since 2015.

Brescia

A Socio-Medical Support and Information Point has assisted foreigners accessing the Italian national health system since 2016. A second Information Point was opened in September 2020 within La Casa del Quartiere on Via Milano, a community centre for immigrants and the most vulnerable people in society, in one of Brescia’s main industrial districts and historically one of its largest working-class neighbourhoods.

 

More information on our work in Italy can be found here:

ITALY PROJECTS