Background

In order to facilitate access to care for the most vulnerable sections of the population, since 2011 we have created several mobile clinics and mobile units working in agricultural areas, urban peripheries, refugee camps, and regions affected by natural disasters.

These are motorised vehicles of various kinds set up in a special way to make our work as effective as possible. Thanks to the mobile structures, we are able to reach isolated areas where there are no medical facilities and to move, even in urban environments, to the areas where our intervention is most necessary.

The possibility of moving the mobile clinics allows us to work in different locations every day, even within the same area.

The Polibuses, the Politruck and the Minivan

The Polibuses are two coaches with a clinic area, a waiting room and a waiting area. Similar but bigger is the Politruck. The Minivans are cabs equipped with an area for an outpatient clinic and another for a reception room.

We offer free of charge, basic health care and socio-sanitary assistance to help those who need it access the healthcare system.

Cultural mediators inform patients about their rights, help them access the National Health Service, accompany them in case they have to undergo visits or specialist examinations at public facilities, deal with the practices for issuing Stp codes (Temporary Foreigner Permits) and Eni (Non-registered EU citizens), guaranteeing access to the public health service for foreigners and EU citizens.

All EMERGENCY Mobile Clinics interventions are carried out in collaboration with local authorities and health authorities.

Our Locations

Sicily

One of our mobile clinics operates in the province of Ragusa due to the year-round agricultural work that brings workers from places like Morocco, Tunisia, Romania and Albania. Their working and living conditions are precarious: they work for around 10-12 hours a day in the suffocating heat and most of them live in abandoned houses, informal settlements or old warehouses being used as accommodation, without drinking water and in many cases without bathroom facilities.

The mobile clinic offers free basic medicine, sanitary education, socio-medical assistance, and psychological support.

Milan

The Polibus operates in several parts of Milan, in the outskirts and around Centrale station. With a doctor, nurse, logistician and cultural mediators on board, we use it to provide primary healthcare, nursing, socio-medical and psychological support to anyone in need, but especially the homeless, migrants and other people from vulnerable groups in the city.

The Minivan also travels around Milan, offering information and meetings with our social workers as part of our Nobody Left Behind project in the city: we assist socially excluded groups to find their way through Italy’s administrative system and access the services to which they have a right.