Trieste, Gorizia: the socio-health orientation desks for migrants’ access to the services of the two cities

MILANO – The socio-health desk has been opened in Trieste EMERGENCYin collaboration with the association Donk Humanitarian Medicine ODVto support migrants coming from the Balkan route and to map the needs of people arriving in the area. The desk is located inside the Day Centre in via Udine 19, of the San Martino al Campo Community ODV. EMERGENCY will carry out its activities on Monday and Wednesday from 9 to 12 and from 14 to 19, on Tuesday from 14 to 19, on Thursday from 9 to 12 and on Friday from 9 to 12 and from 14 to 16.

People exhausted from very long journeys. Migrants arriving in Trieste, after long and complicated journeys, need not only health care but also administrative assistance and precise information to be aware of their rights and navigate the Italian bureaucratic system. For this reason, EMERGENCY has decided to intervene in the city with a socio-health orientation desk that, through the work of a cultural mediator, will facilitate the orientation and access of migrants to the services of Trieste and Gorizia, will promote greater knowledge of the health and administrative services present in the area, will carry out activities of accompaniment of patients with greater difficulties and will carry out outreach activities in informal settlements and other reception centers to assess the condition of hardship of migrants in the area.

These are people who have travelled the Balkan route. “The intervention of EMERGENCY in Trieste supports people who come from the Balkan route. They are men, women and minors who have faced long journeys and violence, just to be able to redeem themselves as human beings, escaping from economies of misery or senseless conflicts – says Andrea Bellardinelli, director of Italy Program – a wandering humanity that has the right to be welcomed, cared for and listened to because it is the real testimony of what is happening in this era of land and sea routes where respect for fundamental human rights is too often forgotten.”

The “Italian Program”: Emergency’s fixed health facilities. EMERGENCY’s fixed clinics are in Marghera, Castel Volturno (CE), Naples, Sassari, Vittoria in the Ragusa area and Polistena (RC). The mobile clinics, which reach marginal areas every weekday, are in Milan, Rosarno, and Marina di Acate (RG) and Santa Croce Camerina (RG). In Brescia and Milan there are also socio-health orientation desks.

The services provided. In 2023, 42,525 services were provided, of which 19,908 were social-health mediation services; 10,887 general medicine services; 8,512 nursing services; 1,852 dental services; 849 interviews with a psychologist and 363 pediatric services. In 2023, among the main critical issues resolved by the operators of Italy Programthere were difficulties in accessing the treatment path; the request for the health card and the request for the STP code (Temporarily Present Foreigner), i.e. the tool that allows access to health facilities for “irregular” foreign citizens.