When your professional career reaches its peak, you often only think about giving yourself a nice rest with your pension. However, there are those who choose, once they have retired, to get back into the game to restore value to their territory. The non-profit association “Buoni Doctori” was born from this drive, led by president Pietro Cortelli together with a group of eminent clinicians and professors from Bologna: Claudio Borghi, Eugenio Brunocilla, Massimo P. Di Simone, Gaetano Domenico Gargiulo, Gilberto Poggioli, Eleonora Porcu, Livio Presutti, Mario Taffurelli and Pierluigi Viale. These specialists have decided to join forces and experience to found a completely free medical clinic aimed at those who live in conditions of marginality or socio-economic vulnerability.
The institutional response was not long in coming: the municipal council approved the agreement entrusting the non-profit organization with the structure in via Trauzzi 15 a/b, located in the heart of the Pilastro district, a neighborhood marked by recent fragilities and social tensions. The operation is strategically managed by Acer Bologna, which has leased the property for a period of six years with an option for a further six. Future rents will be deducted against the interventions necessary to redevelop the headquarters, with a total investment of 176,000 euros entirely paid by the association, divided between 70,000 euros for the redevelopment of the building and 106,000 euros for the refurbishment of the systems.
Complex exams and prevention to reduce inequalities
The project puts the spotlight on a national emergency that is too often underestimated: the renunciation of treatment for economic reasons, which according to Istat data forces around 4 million Italians to abandon checks, visits and therapies due to the prohibitive costs of the private sector and the long waiting times of the public sector. The Pilastro clinic does not aim to replace the National Health Service, but rather to support it in an integrated way, intercepting situations of housing and psychosocial vulnerability early through the direct intervention of the Municipality’s Social Services and active collaboration with the Third Sector networks present in the area.
The operational plan estimates an initial catchment area of 250 patients per year, offering 360-degree medical coverage from pediatric to adult age. Doctors will guarantee multidisciplinary consultations for chronic pathologies, specialist follow-ups and instrumental investigations traditionally burdened by high fees, including endoscopies and color Doppler ultrasound. After the formal approval of the convention, the practical and executive details of the initiative will be presented to citizens in a press conference at the end of the summer break, marking a concrete step towards universal protection of the right to health.
