The socio-sanitary team of INTERSOS has extended its monitoring and prevention intervention to the new Center activated by the Municipality of Rome which offers hospitality to homeless people in particular vulnerable conditions. The medical team carried out medical visits to assess the risk of the COVID-19 epidemic spreading and encourage the insertion of 52 people excluded from the reception path into the facility.
“The opening of the new Center is a very important signal of response to the invisibles of the city – notes Valentina Murino, coordinator of the INTERSOS intervention in Rome. – Since the beginning of the emergency, all new receptions have been blocked, leaving thousands of people on the street. For this reason, together with the concrete intervention that we are carrying out with our socio-sanirtary teams, we re-launch our commitment to protect the rights and dignity of the most vulnerables “.
The intervention in the new Center managed by the Municipality of Rome, adds to the commitment that INTERSOS is carrying out to guarantee social and health assistance to homeless people in the areas of the Termini and Tiburtina railway stations and to those who live in housing occupations. Over 500 medical examinations have already been conducted in these weeks.
“Dialogue with institutions is an integral part of INTERSOS’s approach to this crisis, which aims at finding solutions based on the collaboration of the various actors involved – underlines Cesare Femi, director of INTERSOS programs in Italy. The intervention in agreement with the Municipality of Rome follows the collaboration started with the Puglia Region with the aim of guaranteeing support to the regional health system to deal with the COVID-19 emergency among the laborers who live in the Foggia area and improve hygiene and sanitation conditions in settlements.
1522 people have already been reached by the interventions of prevention and medical examinations conducted by the INTERSOS mobile team in the Foggia area, out of a total of about 2400 people currently living in the informal settlements in the area.
The work of INTERSOS mobile units in Rome and Foggia is supported by UNICEF, LDS Charities, Fondazione Nazionale delle Comunicazioni, Fondazione Snam, Fondazione Monti Uniti di Foggia, 8 × 1000 UCEBI, Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, E.J.Safra Foundation, 8 × 1000 Chiesa Valdese, Kahane Foundation.