The citizens of Prato will have the first eating disorder clinic affiliated with the public health system available by June. The new service will be hosted in the Prato health center in the center of Via Fra Bartolomeo. A local project resulting from the synergy between general practitioners with Fimmg (Federation of General Practitioners) at the forefront, hospital specialists with Giuseppe Cardamone, director of the Adult Mental Health Area of the ASL centre, and Marco Armellini, director of the Health Department mental health and addictions of the ASL Centro. “We are satisfied to have achieved this objective by starting a clinic dedicated to eating disorders – comment Niccolò Biancalani, Fimmg regional secretary and the director Cardamone – All citizens can access the service and not just those who belong to this health center. We hope to help many patients, who are on the increase in Italy too. To this it must be added that the phenomenon is becoming increasingly worrying because the age at which these problems appear is decreasing, down to 12. years”. How will the clinic work? “We will start with two Tuesdays a month and then move on to every Tuesday – says Biancalani – thanks also to the commitment and collaboration of the directors Cardamone and Armellini, of their doctors together with whom psychologists, nutritionists, dieticians and family doctors will collaborate to the complete care of patients through the affiliated healthcare system”.
What interests doctors is to identify patients with problems related to eating disorders as soon as possible: “The quicker these critical patients are intercepted, the better chance they have in managing the pathology – says Armellini – The first action starts from the GP who decides to send the patient for a specialist evaluation. We have prepared doctors and nurses with ad hoc training so that they can recognize whether there is a serious problem or not that needs to be taken care of.” The director of the ASL’s eating disorders service is Stefano Lucarelli: “In the first 4 months of 2024, this network received 50 requests from outside the region – says Armellini –. In 2023 we count 960 requests for first visits for adults and 150 requests for minors “.
Sara Bessi
