Primary nursing care, socio-medical guidance and psychological support to agricultural workers and vulnerable people.

With a fixed outpatient clinic in Polistena and a mobile outpatient clinic moving daily between Rosarno and the tent city in San Ferdinando, we offer free healthcare to agricultural workers and other vulnerable people in the Italian countryside struggling to access treatment.

In a region where agricultural production continues to be a significant part of the economy, the labour force is often comprised of underpaid and exploited foreign workers, hired into the illegal networks known as ‘caporalato.’

Our patients, often forced to work at an excruciating pace, live in makeshift accommodation such as informal settlements and abandoned cottages without access to basic hygiene facilities. They report musculoskeletal pain, dermatitis and gastrointestinal disorders, and other illnesses due to the difficult living and working conditions.

The Rosarno Protests: 15 Years Later

In 2010, protests and clashes broke out after local youth attacked immigrant labourers. The situation shed light on the exploitative working conditions endured by thousands of labourers living in the Gioia Tauro Plain.

15 years later, many labourers are still forced to live in dilapidated and informal settlements, without their basic rights respected.

Our Mobile Clinic: The Polibus

With the Polibus – a mobile unit equipped with two outpatient clinics, a mediation space and a reception room – we guarantee a service in the Gioia Tauro Plain, especially in the municipalities of Rosarno and San Ferdinando, where the number of labourers is highest.

On board the Polibus we provide nursing services, socio-medical guidance and psychological counselling. In addition, during the seasonal harvest period (when there is a greater presence of labourers in the area), we provide basic medical services.

The Polibus makes several stops a week, at the tent city in San Ferdinando and the Piazza Valarioti in Rosarno. It is organised according to the seasonality of the labourers’ work, in order to meet the patients’ social and health needs in a practical way: socio-medical guidance and nursing services are provided during the low harvest season (April-September), supported by basic medical services during the high season (October-March).

The Polibus services are open to everyone. The Mobile Clinic is part of a wider project that aims to provide treatment services to people excluded from the Italian National Health Service, guaranteeing the right to health for those whose access is limited by bureaucratic, linguistic and/or economic barriers.

People supported by the Mobile Clinic mainly come from sub-Saharan Africa and work as labourers.

“Since we have been present in the tent city in San Ferdinando, the situation has worsened considerably,” says Mauro Destefano, EMERGENCY’s Project Coordinator in Calabria. “For some time now, the settlement has been increasingly neglected with the absence of posts that could guarantee safety. Quality of life is very poor, and sanitary conditions are getting worse and worse. People come to us not only for social and health reasons but also because they often do not know their rights. They do not know what they are entitled to in health or administrative services. We try to provide guidance and help them access services in the area.”

In 2023, more than half (62%) of people using the Polibus were non-EU citizens with residence permits. Despite their right to live and work in Italy, they often turn to EMERGENCY to navigate the health system. At the same time, their status is precarious as the Italian government has begun to weaken residence permits in recent years.

“There is a risk that many people, who today work with a contract and have a residence permit, will fall into a status of ‘irregularity’ in the future and lose an opportunity to renew their documents. On top of this, contracts often do not accurately reflect the days a labourer has worked, preventing people from receiving a fair wage and from accessing the benefits they should be entitled to, such as unemployment. Actions should be taken on all these aspects and, in parallel, policies should be promoted to incentivise new housing projects to move away from the ghettos that make people increasingly invisible and vulnerable,” adds Mauro Destefano.

Our Outpatient Clinic

In October 2023, we re-opened a fixed outpatient clinic in Polistena, located in a structure confiscated from the ‘Ndrangheta, to offer psychological support, nursing activities, administrative health assistance, and socio-medical education.

The clinics in Calabria are part of EMERGENCY’s Italy Programme, which since 2006 has been providing services to poor and vulnerable people who are often excluded from the Italian National Health Service. The right to health for migrants, citizens of other countries, and people living in vulnerable conditions is limited by bureaucratic, linguistic and economic barriers that obstruct access to care. With the Italy Programme, EMERGENCY works to overcome these barriers and make the right to care a reality for every person.

Providing Care in Calabria since 2011

We started working in the southern Italian region of Calabria in 2011, in Rosarno, to offer care and assistance to labourers employed in the citrus harvesting of the Gioia Tauro Plain.

The project was transformed in July 2013 into a permanent Outpatient Clinic based in Polistena, inside a building confiscated from the ‘Ndrangheta, a Calabrian Mafia group.

The centre’s main activities included providing medical prescriptions and medications, administering intravenous and intramuscular therapies, and socio-medical education.

An EMERGENCY shuttle transported patients to and from the Outpatient Clinic, and accompanied them to facilities in the national health system. This ‘service within a service’ filled a gap within the public transport system, which still forces many labourers travel on foot or by bicycle along inadequately lit roads, where they often become victims of road traffic accidents.

In 2016, we began offering psychological support to meet the needs of an increasing number of patients with different types of psychological distress, such as depression, addiction or post-traumatic stress disorder.

The continued analysis of needs in the area led to the launch of activities on board the Polibus in April 2022 to provide more direct access to care.

Our team in Calabria is comprised of a nurse, two cultural mediators, a logistician and a volunteer psychologist, as well as a doctor and a third cultural mediator during the harvest season.

The ‘Where the Grass Trembles’ Project

In 2018, we published the report “Dove l’erba trema” (Where the grass trembles), which chronicles the invisible lives of labourers in Southern Italy and the reality of their vulnerability, exploitation and lack of basic rights; EMERGENCY assisted them through several projects in collaboration with the local health authorities.

This project is supported with 8×1000 funds from the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai