We were busy assembling a merry-go-round for children: I fell from a truck and broke my arm. I was in hospital for two days, then I went back to the Ex-MOI. The people from MSF helped me obtain a healthcare card and see a doctor. They then accompanied me to the hospital for the operation and physiotherapy. They also helped me when I decided to report my employer who had not reported that I had been the victim of a workplace accident. Not speaking Italian, means you can’t manage to do anything on your own”. M., 21 years old, arrived in Italy few years ago from Guinea. Now he lives at Ex-MOI, an informal settlement in the city Turin.
At the end of 2016, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) introduced a programme aimed at facilitating the access to health for the residents of one of Italy’s largest informal settlements, the former wholesale fruit market (MOI) in Turin.
Here at least one thousands of men, women and children mostly coming from sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa were living in inadequate conditions, overcrowding, no heating, and frequent disruptions in water and electricity supplies, and were faced with different economic and language barriers to access the national health care system.
MSF operators and volunteers went into the buildings to inform the residents of MOI, about the rules and procedures related to accessing healthcare through the Italian National Health Service (SSN).
When MSF started its intervention, seven out of ten did not have a healthcare card, and eight out of ten did not have a general practitioner at the time of their initial contact with the MSF.
As a result of MSF’s activity, 469 people have been assisted since the start of the project up until 31 December 2018.
In 2017, an agreement was signed with the Local Healthcare Service (“Azienda Sanitaria Locale - ASL”) for the “City of Turin” to consolidate the interventions started by MSF.
Two residents from the former MOI that were already involved in MSF activities, were identified as cultural mediators to facilitate the procedures regarding registration with the SSN. As a result, the time required to finalise registration, with the concurrent allocation of a general practitioner, has come down from two months to one week.
In 2018, the agreement between MSF and the healthcare local centre was extended to include the Municipality of Turin, with the intention of facilitating the registration required to access the SSN and with the additional objective of integrating regional social-healthcare services directed at the more vulnerable sections of the population.