Milan Project
Italy - Milan
Socio-medical support for the most disadvantaged people in Milan.
Work at our Mobile Clinic began in Milan in 2015. Our presence in the city has expanded over the years, with the launch of an info point at Casa EMERGENCY – our head office – in 2018, as well as the “Nobody Left Behind” project, which began during the pandemic and has broadened to become our Social Project in Milan.
Together, the projects are part of our Italy Programme, through which EMERGENCY has been providing services since 2006 to support people in the most vulnerable parts of society to access healthcare, a right enshrined under the Italian Constitution.
Accessible for All
EMERGENCY’s mobile clinic and socio-medical info point are open to everyone, without discrimination of any kind.
In Italy, the right to healthcare for foreign nationals, migrants and people living in vulnerable circumstances or in economic difficulty is often restricted by bureaucratic, linguistic and financial barriers which, together with administrative complexities, represent real obstacles to accessing care.
Vulnerability takes many forms, affecting the well-being of individuals as well as the wider community. In Milan in particular, housing insecurity has become both a cause and a consequence of social marginalisation.
Our aim is to facilitate access to care by constructing paths into the national health service for people who, for whatever reason, cannot access the system.
“Patients – both Italian and foreign nationals – often encounter difficulties in navigating the National Health Service (SSN) due to residence in other regions, bureaucratic hurdles, linguistic and cultural barriers, and the lack of preparation among officials, who frequently lack adequate knowledge of both the regulations and the possible administrative procedures for different situations,” says Loredana Carpentieri, coordinator of the mobile clinic in Milan.
The Polibus: A Mobile Clinic to Support Vulnerable Neighbourhoods
Socio-medical and psychological support
Our Info Point at Casa Emergency, at Via Santa Croce 19, was set up to provide psychological support. Now, it also offers medical assistance and nursing, in line with the mobile clinic’s work, as well as cultural mediation, socio-medical support and paediatric services.
The aim of our socio-medical support project is to practise good basic medicine – and to demonstrate the importance of doing so. Our work helps strengthen the links between medical services and local people, which cannot be done simply by providing treatment, but also by monitoring needs among groups that are often overlooked.
We run this project with the help of local organisations and under an agreement with ATS Città Metropolitana Milano.
Working hours and addresses of EMERGENCY’s Polibus and Info Point (click to download PDF).
Socio-Medical Information Point at Fatabenefratelli Hospital A&E
Thanks to an agreement between EMERGENCY, ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco and the City of Milan, an EMERGENCY Cultural Mediator is available in the A&E department of Fatebenefratelli Hospital from Monday to Friday, 10.00–18.00.
The service is supporting people for whom the A&E department is the only means of accessing healthcare services, as well as to assist homeless people seeking shelter without a medical reason.
After accessing emergency and urgent care services and receiving a doctor’s assessment, an individual can be referred to EMERGENCY’s Cultural Mediator within the facility for support services related to care pathway integration, linguistic and cultural barriers, or administrative issues with Italian National Health Service registration and referrals to appropriate social and healthcare facilities.
After registration and an initial assessment, the EMERGENCY staff member directs patients toward external services, provides a referral to our own mobile clinic, and starts them on the correct care pathway within the National Health Service.
“Nobody Left Behind”: EMERGENCY’s social project
In January 2022 we started a project in Milan to assist and guide people into the local social services, from which a substantial portion of people in the city found themselves excluded.
Today the project’s direct beneficiaries are the same people who received food under our initial “Nobody Left Behind” programme. In the project’s first phase, during the Covid-19 emergency, we gave out food and goods to address basic material needs. In this second phase, however, the roughly 2,000 people are struggling less with basic goods, and more with accessing the welfare and services to which they are entitled (e.g., work, housing and benefits), so we are guiding them along a personal path to gain or regain their autonomy and financial independence.
Accessing Social Support
Many things in both the public and private realms can limit access to social support: a lack of information about how to access social services or whether one is allowed to in the first place, administrative hurdles, bureaucratic red tape, language barriers.
To facilitate communication between local people and our staff, we run a dedicated switchboard so that anyone can ask for information or arrange a meeting with one of our social workers. We hold these meetings either in gazeboes or on board EMERGENCY’s Minivan, a refurbished camper-van that parks in certain areas of Milan on set days and times.
Beneficiaries are supported through a programme aimed at social inclusion, which begins with an initial guidance phase, tailored to the recipient’s needs: social and healthcare guidance, job search support or guidance on local public or private services (e.g. CAF, welfare organisations, local offices…) or other organisations.
The programme also supports people with the applications and documentation needed to access the services to which they are already entitled, as well as monitoring their progress through check-ins, in order to build mutual trust and ensure success.
EMERGENCY’s Social Project
EMERGENCY’s Social Project aims to support the most vulnerable sections of the population in overcoming linguistic and cultural barriers, helping them to navigate the complexities of the often fragmented administrative system with confidence and access the services to which they are entitled. The aim is not to replace or duplicate services already available in the local area, but to fill the existing gaps that hinder access to services and benefits.
Each step flows smoothly into the next: we begin by identifying the beneficiary’s needs, then give them information and mediation, guide them over the barriers and, once they have entered the services, make sure they have everything they need to continue integrating, developing and becoming completely independent. We monitor each person’s progress, in regular meetings or brief phone calls, with a view to mutual trust and eventual success. Our approach seeks to make access to the network of private and public services fair and inclusive, for the benefit of the most vulnerable groups of people in Milan, both Italians and foreigners.
The project is run in partnership with various Milanese organisations: Supporto Popolare, Mutuo Soccorso and several branches of Brigate Volontarie per l’Emergenza have been at EMERGENCY’s side since the toughest months of the pandemic, when they helped us hand out food packages around the city.
