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  A “protected residence” at Gemelli Hospital for sick pilgrims

Massimo Aquili

Supportive of the poor and the suffering, the authentic spirit of the jubilee reception, as narrated in the chronicles of the Holy Year’s of the past, relives at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart for the Great Jubilee. A “protected health residence” has been established on the hill of the university campus that looks out onto the city and is in contact, not only visible, with the Gemelli Hospital. It is aimed at pilgrims who, during the year 2000, may require medical or specialist treatment, security in controls and assistance at the right time, like the handicapped. They can be accommodated in the new structure with family members in “four star” rooms and “accessible prices”, use the health services available and therefore carry out their jubilee pilgrim without concerns. The attached Centre of emodialysis, on the ground floor of the Residence, which adds 18 new beds to the one that is always functioning in the Hospital nearby, makes it especially comfortable for pilgrims with dialysis. “Works like the Protected Health Residence encourage to look to the Great Jubilee of 2000”, said Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State during the inauguration ceremony of the new structure. “Certainly – he added – the Church is attentive above all to the interior Jubilee, through which a person can rediscover the mystery of Christ two thousand years from his Incarnation. Nonetheless there is also an external Jubilee, which brings to mind the pilgrims, who are in need of food, a bed, a bus and a hospital if they should get sick. Let us praise – he added – all those who like “pioneers” have worked and continue to work for a supportive reception of pilgrims”. The Residence was established precisely as a challenge open and accessible to everyone. “Jesus was born in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk 2:7). Today, in the sign of the Jubilee and of the birth of Christ – wrote the Rector of the Catholic University Sergio Zaninelli in the message for the inauguration – this initiative of ours wants to be an attempt to open doors and make available a place for the sick”. And for “the entire Holy Year – the Rector explained – the new structure will be involved in the formidable efforts of reception of the pilgrims”, in collaboration with the Reception Service of the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee. After the Jubilee, it will be used “to assist the relatives and the sick who need to stay in hospital for a lengthy period and come from faraway localities, thus partly removing the difficulties linked to finding adequate accommodation for family members of the sick person, who are often face serious financial problems”. The Protected Health Residence and all the new structures of the Gemelli Hospital are inspired to the philosophy of “the centrality of the sick person and his needs” – said the Director General Antonio Cichetti describing the structure. The rooms are seventy, six of which with cooking facilities, all with a balcony, television, mini-bar fridge and telephone. The colours are pale welcoming. On each floor there are also kitchens and dining rooms, large areas to sit and relax and to prepare meals. The Director is certain that 100% advantage will be taken of the residence. 21,000 days of accommodation are expected and, for the dialysis centre, some 2,500 patients per year. The first guest will be a pilgrim from Taiwan that booked via the Internet. Another tangible sign of the renewed attention towards the sick is the new hall of the Gemelli Hospital, inaugurated at the same time as the Residence because it reflects its spirit of reception: no one should feel excluded. It’s a square on three floors, constructed to extend the space for the sick beyond the hospital wards, conceived as a meeting place for the sick and their relatives, their friends, so that their life may continue even when illness breaks into their existence.

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