Erasmus, health and legal assistance and social attention: a perfect educational and professional mix for 15 future nurses, educators and lawyers from Holland, Romania and Greece, together with Italian fellow students, involved in an assistance proposal short to people in need.
The students attended a particular lesson in Florence, at “Casa Stenone”: a structure managed by the Caritas Solidarity Foundation for people who have just been discharged from hospital who do not have a home in which to continue treatment. The aim is to learn how this service works, unique in Italy, aimed at welcoming people with both economic-social and health difficulties.
A 360-degree immersion precisely because the students, hosted by the operators of Casa Stenone, were able to “study” and observe first-hand this innovative model of intervention for health care for people at risk of marginalization.
Vincent Lucchetti, president of the Caritas Foundation, says: «Casa Stenone is seen as a model in Europe because it combines health care with social care. The service is aimed at Italian and foreign people not enrolled in the national health system, hospitalized in the hospitals of the Florence Health Authority of the Usl Toscana Centro which includes San Giovanni Di Dio, Santa Maria Nuova, Empoli and Pistoia and the hospitals of the health authority of Florence such as Careggi and CTO in need of continuity of care once discharged: not having accommodation, an adequate socio-family network, these people could not complete the treatment path, nor be supported from a social point of view, for them there is no it is another possibility of accommodation in suitable structures». A total look at people in need of care, from every point of view and a decidedly intelligent way of learning in the field.
Niccolò Stenone was a Danish geologist and doctor who, in the 1600s, was the doctor of the Medici house in Florence. Converted to Catholicism, he was beatified by John Paul II in 1988.