Project
Managed by the Diocese thanks to the commitment of volunteer doctors and nurses. Bishop Prastaro: “He will be aimed at the poor and forgotten”
On the occasion of the private audience granted by Pope Francis to pilgrims from Asti, last Friday at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, Bishop Marco Prastaro announced, on the occasion of his greeting to the Holy Father, the opening of the “Fratelli tutti” clinic in Asti . “It will be a place – he explained – where the rejected, the poor and the forgotten will be able to receive health care and access specialist medical examinations. The clinic will make use of the collaboration of nursing staff, specialist doctors and other operators who, on a voluntary and free basis, will offer time and skills for the health of the most disadvantaged. The volunteers will be people with different religious, cultural and political affiliations, but all united by the desire to create a more fraternal and just world“.
The idea was appreciated by the Pope, who mentioned the project in his speech.
The project
But where will the clinic be set up? It will find space in the Diocesan Family and Life House in via Giobert, opposite the Benedetto Alfieri art school, where the Cif (Italian Women’s Center), the Life Help Center and some parish groups that use the meeting room will continue to be hosted.
«The property – explained by the Ministry of Health, in charge of following the project – has a part considered of historical value, for which we should receive the go-ahead from the Superintendency within a few days for the adaptation and restoration works. After that, the interventions that should allow the inauguration of the clinic for the autumn will be carried out».
The project was conceived before the pandemic, due to which it has remained on hold until today. “At an organizational level – they conclude – we will be supported by Caritas, which has long used a system for verifying the economic conditions of those seeking help to prevent people who are not in difficult situations from benefiting from support and services”.