With the proactive medicine promoted by the doctors of General Medicine the Community House of Legnano begins to take shape. The GST Cooperative, led by Dr. Leonardo Vegetti, with the complicity of Asst Ovest Milanese, he set up a vaccination clinic in the former hospital. Service activated last autumn to offer anti-Covid and anti-flu vaccinations and which is now expanding the offer by addressing in particular the audience of chronically ill people over 65.
In this context, vaccines such as the one for Herpes Zoster, the antipneumococcal and the quadrivalent antimeningococcal are administered. Also on the list are those for hepatitis B, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, and even whooping cough. This is a first experiment that if it finds the right resources on the financial and human front it will stabilize, with the creation of an Operations Center capable of organizing the shifts of family doctors and calling interested chronic patients.
The clinic is already taking its first steps with about 8 doctors rotating in shifts. And the results obtained to date are positive. The service can be accessed both through the family doctor and by appointment. How has Dr. Vegetti explained during the presentation of the new project, the general practitioner is the main actor of this service: «We have direct contact with the patients, we know their history and can therefore send them to have the vaccine where it is necessary. At the same time we can explain to chronic patients who request the service which vaccines are useful for them ».
The goal is to do prevention at 360 degrees: «Let’s remember that the arrival of vaccinations in the medical field was a revolutionary step: it improved people’s quality of life. I emphasize that we family doctors have been promoting proactive medicine for several years and now being able to do it in a community home is decidedly important: among other things, it allows us to carry out vaccinations in dedicated spaces », explains Vegetti.
The vaccination clinic will be followed by general practitioners of the area who will voluntarily provide service. Next to them there will be the staff of Asst Ovest Milanese with Lorena Falabretti DAPS responsible for the vaccination service of Asst e Caesarius Barbatus contact person of the vaccination service.
This new service represents an important step in the process of completing the Community House of Legnano. For Gabriella Monolo, health and social care director of the ASST Ovest Milanese is also a further step towards taking charge of subjects suffering from chronic pathologies in the context of proactive medicine which represents an «approach to population health that focuses on the prevention of diseases before they manifest in overt pathologies. In this context, vaccinations are also particularly important because they can prevent the spread of important infectious diseases by helping to reduce the impact on the health system and the economy”. Monolo then specified that the Community House, precisely for the lack of professional figures such as nurses and doctors, will have long implementation times: «We don’t have to stop for this – says Monolo -. We must persevere and beyond the difficulties we must continue to implement the design of a medicine capable of taking care of the patient”.