MESTRE – Would like to be more socially active by working in smart working and receive better economic and health assistance Laura, 43 years old from Mestre, chronic patient with disabilities followed by the Venetian Ulss. Following a car accident when she was 19, Laura suffered a spinal injury, which progressively worsened, and became a neurological patient. Since then, after long periods spent immobilized on a bed and several interventions have passed 24 years, her life has gone on but Laura has had to live with chronic pain and rely on health care perceived more and more as inadequate.
Laura’s appeal: “Let me do the smartworking”
Initially, thanks to a morphine prolonged-release intramedullary infusion systemLaura was able to complete her studies, work for eight years as a cashier in a cinema in Mestre and be active in the world of volunteering, but at a certain point the prolonged intake of morphine caused her a intestinal paresis, forcing her to leave the use and to resort to other pain-relieving substances containing molecules which, in order to continue to have an effect, must be periodically changed in rotation. “When a lonely woman like me becomes fragile and unable to be placed at work, receiving a disability allowance of 290 euros per month from the state is something that cannot be accepted because it forces me to go and get groceries at the” All standing “food counter of Mestre – observes Laura – and because by doing so it proves to neglect a part of the population that lives with serious pathologies, does not work and cannot count on the support of a family. Yet with the current technological means and a guaranteed network coverage I could work from home, get back into the game, make myself useful and earn something more that allows me to live better ».
In addition to the low financial support Laura complains about the lack of constant psychological support. “Visiting once a month with the psychologist and psychiatrist who prescribes antidepressant drugs is not enough and then the mental health center does not have an address connected with pain therapy – explains Laura – while the activation of a help desk that psychologically assists and keeps active the chronic patient who has to follow pain therapy, perhaps through the activation of workshops or group activities. I do not deny that in terms of assistance in this area there are things that work, but there are others that are lacking, I realized that the chronic neurological patient would also need a winter hospitalization of at least 30 days a year in a structure where you can do swimming and physiotherapy to reactivate the motor and body functions and accustom him to the use of aids such as the wheelchair that I have to use for my travels or. Instead there are people in the same situation as me who are forced to spend the whole winter at home motionless in bed, full of pain, who could be temporarily hospitalized in a facility like Fatebenefratelli ».