Context

The Metropolitan City of Palermo, which also includes the municipalities in the surrounding area, is home to a large segment of the population that has difficulty accessing the National Health System or that makes partial or improper use of the offer guaranteed by the public health service. This is demonstrated by the figures on avoidable hospitalisations and the excessively high number of white codes in emergency rooms, as well as the high rate of chronicisation of certain diseases due to the lack of prevention and the reduction of access points to health services for undocumented persons.

These places are affected by a general lack of connection between the socio-health and social-welfare system, as well as by the presence of a segment of the population in a state of distress migrating from one service to another: homeless people, families in socio-economic difficulty or in chronic conditions of distress.

Our intervention in 2023

In 2023, we reached 222 people, including 169 foreigners and 65 minors. A total of 327 actions were carried out, including medical visits, social assistance, and other support activities.

Additionally, with the support of the Italian Buddhist Union, we launched a project to provide psychological support to recipients identified during the initial screening and to ensure referrals to mental health services. Throughout the year, 12 individuals benefited from ethnopsychotherapy, while 8 were referred to local services. The project also includes capacity-building activities aimed at INTERSOS staff, third-sector organizations, and local hospital healthcare personnel, to enhance skills and collaboration in the field of mental health.

Activities

Accùra is a socio-sanitary outpatient clinic for people in conditions of severe marginality. A proximity place that guarantees the right to health and psychosocial assistance to the vulnerable population of the metropolitan area of Palermo, who cannot access public social and health services.

Accùra is supported by the Ebbene Foundation, Sol.Co, the Municipality of Palermo and the Mazzola Foundation.

Inaugurated in June 2023, Accùra represents a physical and relational reference point for the inhabitants of the area, as well as an orientation point for services, necessary to reconnect marginalised people to the city fabric, through a full awareness of their rights.

At Accùra, a Sicilian expression meaning “paying attention to” and/or “caring for someone and showing that one cares about them”, the following activities are carried out:

• general medical examinations;
• specialist examinations (gynaecology, cardiology, psychiatry, nutrition, general surgery, ultrasound);
• psychotherapy;
• social assistance;
• health and social guidance;
• health promotion activities;
• social-health training for public operators and third sector organisations in Palermo;
• “Ti Prescrivo Lo Sport“, i.e. prescription and execution of guided motor activities for therapeutic purposes in the Accùra outdoor safe-space.