«Misurina could become a center not only for the treatment of children’s asthma, but also for rehabilitation for young lung transplants, providing ad hoc programs with physical and sporting activity, essential for these diseases. But to do all this you need resources ».
Speaking is Dr. Ermanno Baldo, former medical director of the Pio XII Institute from June 2017 to autumn 2019. Pediatrician with a specialization in immuohematology, head physician at the Rovereto hospital, he has always dealt with respiratory diseases. Faced with the decision of the diocesan work of San Bernardo degli Uberti to close the structure at the end of this year, he is very disappointed. “It is a real shame that we are going to lose a unique institute in Italy, where at the end of the second post-war period, we began to study and understand that asthma and respiratory diseases could find a cure in high-altitude structures where the air it is clean. In Misurina », the doctor is keen to specify,« in addition to clean air, we also find a lower barometric pressure which thus allows for different breathing. I myself have noticed that one day after arrival the children are already breathing better, playing football without problems. In Misurina we have seen that in 10-15 days the allergic inflammation of the lung is resolved ».
“In Misurina we were 120 children From there the drive to become a doctor”
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For Baldo Misurina «it is the ideal place to develop projects not only for the treatment of asthma problems, but also as a rehabilitation place for those who have undergone a lung transplant. «For a transplant patient of this type, respiratory rehabilitation is essential to re-expand the lung. We had already begun to think about it during my direction and we had also involved the Italian association against Cystic Fibrosis in order to start a rehabilitation center there. Before the first crisis of the institute began in 2019, there were many projects in place, but then everything fell apart “, says the pediatrician who adds:” The mountain around 1700-1900 meters above sea level is a perfect environment to heal these respiratory diseases. In the mountains, an asthmatic child will be able to do things that would be impossible in the plains because the altitude and clean air, without allergens, allows for control of the disease ».
The Pio XII Center for asthmatic children in Misurina closes at the end of the year
The pediatrician specifies that a person develops his lungs up to the age of 18 “so we can change the fate of a child if we train him to breathe and to enlarge his lungs. The larger the lungs, the more he will have a good old age ».