Palermo, 23 December 2022 – At the hospital “Ospedali Riuniti Villa Sofia – Cervello” the program for Christmas 2022 has been underway since the beginning of the week, created by the Multidisciplinary Team of the Office of Education and Promotion of Corporate Health (in the photo), as part of the “Progetto PSN 2016”: “Experimental model of social-welfare pathways for patients with chronic diseases”. The aim is to entertain patients and caregivers with artistic moments (of music, writing, dance and acting) to make their stay in the hospital less burdensome during these Christmas days, involving healthcare workers and operating units. The wide range of events inside the hospital, in addition to the exchange of gifts made ad hoc for patients, was opened a few days ago by Salvo Piparo’s “Il Cunto”: the well-known actor and storyteller from Palermo gave a performance linked to the popular Sicilian tradition, dedicated to the patients and health and social workers of the Cardiology department of the Villa Sofia PO. During these days, toys were distributed to young patients in various units of the “Villa Sofia and Cervello” facilities. In the spirit of the gift that characterized the initiative, the gifts were symbolically offered by the elderly patients of the long-term care unit, who in return received the thank-you drawings made by the children of the aforementioned wards thanks to the help and collaboration of the teachers of ” School in Hospital”. To date, several initiatives have already been implemented, from “And a child is born” by the narrator Davide Scibilia, recited for patients and operators, with the musical accompaniment of the musician Vincenzo Verderosa to the sound of the hang drum, a particular percussion instrument; at the “Danzamovimentoterapia” workshop with Laura Traina and Michela di Franco, aimed at stimulating knowledge of one’s body and the channel of self-awareness to create a synergy between motor, psychological and cognitive aspects; at the performance of The Brass Group “Musica del nostro Tempo” by Claudio Giambruno and Sergio Munafò: the musicians of the prestigious Brass Group Foundation in Palermo, until today. During the day “Songs and Popular Music” will be held with Patrizia Genova and Armando Chiaramonte: the singer and the musician will perform traditional popular songs for patients and operators. The next 4 and 5 January 2023, two more appointments are on the agenda. A performance by the Band of the Military Corps of the Italian Red Cross and the visit of the Police Chief of Palermo, Dr. Leopoldo Laricchia and the Dog Unit of the State Police, who will entertain the patients with a demonstration of their activities in the open spaces of the Presidium, are scheduled of Villa Sofia. All activities have been and are reserved for patients in compliance with the measures in force for the prevention and containment of the contagion from Covid 19.
“The strategic management – says Walter Messina, director general of the Ospedali Riuniti of Palermo – wanted to give a tangible signal of attention to the hospitalized people and their caregivers even in a particular moment such as Christmas, which has a pre-eminent value of solidarity and spirituality . It is our duty, as a public healthcare facility, to maximize the comfort of our patients, even more so in a period in which separation from loved ones weighs more heavily, and to guarantee high standards of hospitality with an approach that looks at the centrality of the person. Humanization – as already indicated in the ministerial lines – must place the patient at the center of the treatment: this concept marks the passage from a conception of the patient as a mere carrier of a pathology to one of a person with his feelings and perceptions with respect to the own state of health. The hospital, therefore, as a place of care par excellence, thus also offers the opportunity to strengthen solidarity ties: this helps both patients and operators to translate negative aspects of life into positive emotions, for the benefit of all and facilitates cultural transformations aimed at improving the quality of assistance, through the enhancement of relations between and with operators and with the body/institution, contributing to humanization as a system mission”. “Our commitment – says Dr. Salvo Siciliano, contact person for the Company’s health promotion and education office – in the name of a historical tradition of our company, continues with the basic objective of supporting hope and shifting attention from the disease to the person in his complexity. Through art, in its most varied forms and music – values that have always been capable of celebrating the beauty of life – it is possible to consolidate that common thread that improves the relationship of care through solidarity languages. Metaphorically it is worth investing in an innovative and human vision of assistance to build dialogues and strengthen aspects of solidarity within the hospital to make assistance to our guests global and all-encompassing, capable of enhancing complex, emotional and behavioral aspects, which support Health as a person’s psycho-physical well-being, as the WHO has already highlighted. Taking care also passes from the ability to “support” the spirit, as well as the body and the socio-relational dimension and therefore requires us to make the context more human and as less traumatic as possible with respect to the impacts of social life” .
