The “shack”, the one the founder recommended on his deathbed, not only holds, but has expanded and multiplied. 70 years after the death of Don Carlo Gnocchi, that house built among the rubble of the war to accommodate the disabled has not become a monument to memory, but a living construction site. More care, more research, more humanity. The numbers in the new Mission Budget speak clearly: almost 400 thousand patients welcomed and assisted in 2024, almost two million outpatient services, 6,280 operators, 55 clinical trials started. Behind the numbers, however, as the president explains Don Vincenzo Barbantethere is not just any healthcare company, but a community that continues to deal with the wounds of our time. «The fundamental lesson of Don Gnocchi», he explains, «is to offer today an opportunity for Providence to materialize towards people in need».
70 years after his death, what is Don Gnocchi’s lesson still relevant?
“Don Gnocchi’s fundamental lesson is to offer today an opportunity for Providence to materialize towards people in need.”
The era of Don Gnocchi and that of today seem sidereally distant
«From a scientific point of view, obviously yes, but despite progress, humanity retains situations of human and social fragility, suffering and pain. And too often those who are fragile are alone. Caritas data speak of an increase in people in difficulty in satisfying primary needs, providing for the family, sustenance and healthcare. Let’s not talk about prevention.”
Don Gnocchi is a reality present throughout the country. Is the situation the same everywhere?
« The Foundation is present in nine Italian regions and we record significantly different situations between the north and south of the country, but also between suburbs and urban centers, or peripheral areas of large cities characterized by phenomena of marginalization and loneliness and country contexts where there are still strong social bonds of solidarity.
The problem is the suburbs, as Pope Francis said.
«In the outskirts of large cities, one in four people cannot take care of their health because they are unable to pay the copays or, given the existing waiting lists, access paid services. The current service offering system currently presents declared organizational and budgetary difficulties.”
But the government decree on waiting lists didn’t work?
«We at Don Gnocchi, based on the agreements in place with the National Health System, provide services within the limits set by the system, but we are aware that the demand is more consistent. As far as we are concerned, we are committed to doing everything possible and in cases of obvious urgency and need we intervene by making resources available that we have set aside in a special fund that we have established with the charity collected.
Is there a face that could tell your latest social balance sheet?
«There are many. Among the many there is that of Paolo, he had been hospitalized by us in very serious conditions. He came from the Meyer pediatric hospital in Florence with very serious brain problems. His parents didn’t recognize him. The condition was so serious that the lifespan should have been four days.”
And instead?
«We took care of it. He survived the operation, then remained at our center of excellence for rehabilitation in Florence, without a deadline being defined. Every time I went to the centre, I went to visit him and saw him in his bed, he struggled to sit up and punctually let himself go to the right or left. One day I see the doctor who was in charge of him. I say to her: “Hi, how’s our friend?”. And she starts crying. I get scared: “what happened?” And she: “we found a couple who adopted him”.
And how is Paolo today?
«I’ll show you the video I have on my phone. Look: here he is eating ice cream for the first time. Here’s another video: they teach him to stand up. Now he’s grown up, he walks, he goes to school: do you realize? They had given him 4 days to live. Operated on, accompanied, cared for, loved.”
Paolo is the symbol of Don Gnocchi.
«Paolo is what can happen when Don Carlo’s mandate is fulfilled. But also the mandate of many other founders of similar works: I am thinking of Cottolengo; to Don Domenico Pogliani of the Holy Family, who began by welcoming fragile people into his home; the blessed Don Luigi Monza. I look to this world where the exercise of solidarity – a human value and at the same time a concrete expression of Christian charity – can do great things.”
What was Don Carlo’s mandate?
«Living a relationship with fragile people not by standing in front of them, reducing everything to services as often happens in the health system or welfare services, but next to them».
Are you also affected by the shortage of nurses and doctors?
« It is incredible that in Italy, one of the most developed countries on the planet, given the existing needs, there is no planning that can provide an adequate response in a reasonable period of time. Covid has shown the limits of certain forecasts regarding the need for doctors and nurses. Even the recent regulatory interventions to promote a local healthcare system provide for numbers of nurses and operators who do not exist and, to use a joke, were not even born. Demographic evolution is not taken into account. The system then does not guarantee adequate economic recognition to the staff and this does not encourage the entry of new operators and the issue does not only concern doctors and nurses, but also other professionals, educators, physiotherapists, … But there is a third issue”.
And which one?
«It’s time to put an end to the continuous distinction between public and private healthcare, which are opposed. We always forget that in healthcare there are three realities: public healthcare, profit and non-profit. The non-profit, the non-profit one, whose surpluses are always reinvested, performs a subsidiary function towards the State. In public healthcare, when a patient frees up a bed and is sent to a non-profit facility like ours, the State saves 60 to 80% of costs. This is never said. Private for-profit healthcare has greater flexibility in adapting tariffs to costs, especially in insolvency activities and has different objectives (mission) and recipients. Our reality is truly something else. For us, subsidiarity means promoting the widest possible accessibility to services and sometimes in some contexts this translates from subsidiarity into substitution: in fact where the State doesn’t respond, we say “oh well, someone will think about it”. And that someone is still a reality of Christian inspiration today, like ours, and we end up giving out of charity what would be due out of justice.”
The future of rehabilitation passes through new technologies. Where is the border between innovation and the centrality of the person? Isn’t there a risk of automating too much?
«Robotics and innovative tools must promote increasingly adequate rehabilitation treatments and care, always favoring the well-being of the guest and the professional growth of the operators. Furthermore, the use of new technologies can contribute to lowering the costs of treatments and promoting access to services for more users, without excluding but enhancing the role and skills of operators. The patient is also more satisfied because with the use of the machines he can immediately see the progress achieved.».
Does this also apply to AI?
« Artificial intelligence is used and will be increasingly used. It is useful for diagnostics and therapeutic protocols. Each rehabilitation act, with electronic and robotic instruments, produces data that allows us to improve diagnoses, treatments and therapies. ».
Aren’t you afraid of it?
«No, if handled correctly. Diagnosis is based on algorithms, but personalization by the doctor is essential: algorithms are not enough, you need to know how to read and interpret the data. The personalization of care must not fail. Speaking of innovation, Don Gnocchi was not against technological innovations and the development of new therapeutic possibilities. Let’s not forget that he was the first to offer his corneas for a transplant, when there was no law in this area yet. Don Gnocchi wanted to make everything that scientific and technological research could already produce at the disposal of disabled people and polio sufferers. For him, the treatment was open to innovation, as long as it was accompanied by the relationship.”
Do you often have to deal with Don Gnocchi? To say: “Don Gnocchi here, what would you do?”
«Sometimes yes. I believe I have a special relationship with Don Gnocchi. Don Carlo tells me not to sit down at all. Not sitting down means not only guaranteeing the continuity of the institution, but keeping an eye on the needs of the people: those we welcome and those who cannot find answers. This certainly requires us to guarantee the sustainability of our activities by respecting rigorous and professional management and organizational criteria. But it’s not enough to say: “let’s get the numbers right”. Everything must be done correctly, in compliance with the rules and all the rules for good administration, but at the center is the mission of the organization and the last word is the guiding star of charity.”
Don Carlo Gnocchi is famous for amputees and polio sufferers. What would be the object of your attention today?
«Probably today there is no particular pathology. There is a condition: the fragility and suffering of many children, adults and elderly people in Italy and around the world to whom it is not possible to provide adequate care. Don Carlo’s cry would be to reach out to as many people as possible, in Italy and abroad.”
