Teenager from Savona with brain damage, mother Monica’s clarifications

Dear IVG Savona Management

I refer to the article which appeared on 4/19/24 on IVG Savona which reports the following passage requested by the San Martino Hospital Health Management in Genoa in relation to the delicate situation of my son Ivan:

“For transparency and fairness towards the boy’s family members and acquaintances – they specify – it is firmly underlined that none of the professionals working at the Neurorehabilitation Clinic recommended the transfer of the young man to the Austrian clinic indicated by the family members and reported by the press organs that are dedicating to the story. The Clinic, thanks to close collaboration with the other Operating Units of the San Martino Polyclinic, is perfectly capable of providing the most suitable rehabilitation and healthcare treatments for the patient. It is believed that any transfers would not bring any clinical advantage, but would only cause logistical problems for the family members, already very stressed by the incident…”.

Articles of the same nature have appeared both in the Province of Savona and Genoa also on Savona News, Genova 24.

In this regard, I would like to point out that I am grateful to the assistance of the S Martino Hospital in Genoa for the high quality of the medical rehabilitation care that is administered to my son on a daily basis with attention and great professionalism. However, I cannot fail to respect the intentions of the donors who are contributing to the optimization of Ivan’s care, which the undersigned he never declared, nor told anyone that the S Martino Hospital in Genoa recommended Ivan’s transfer to the Austrian clinic in Hochzirl.

The sentence I published on social media that created this unpleasant incident was totally misunderstood by Prof Trompetto who wanted to understandably specify for the protection of the S Martino Hospital that he had never recommended Ivan’s transfer to Austra. And this is true. First of all, I never talked about transferring Ivan immediately, but that this would eventually be done at the end of his rehabilitation process in Genoa S. Martino. Furthermore, I have never spoken about suggestions from doctors at the S. Martino Hospital in Genoa, but I informed them of the medical opinion I received last February 2024 from Prof Leopold Saltuari, former head physician at Hochzirl, according to which in said Austrian facility Ivan could benefit from rehabilitation for a
– intensive treatment with robotic treatment with Erigo (early dynamic mobilization and verticalization of severely affected patients)
– robotic treatment with Lokomat (functional walking training with the aid of a walking orthosis)
– possibly also robotic treatment with Hirob (automated hippotherapy to improve trunk control, trunk stability and balance)
– robotic treatment with Robert (selective training of the extremities with a cobot with a multi-angle arm)
– conventional neurorehabilitative treatments (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy)
* nursing stimulation (basal stimulation, kinesthesia, positioning according to bobath reactivating treatments) and discussion of a possible intrathecal antispasmodic therapeutic approach.

This does not mean at all that the S Martino Polyclinic is not able to provide the most suitable rehabilitation and care treatments for the patient, but it is certainly the right of my seventeen-year-old son in such a dramatic situation to be able to obtain treatment with techniques through robotization other than those that he is receiving and will receive at San Martino. Regarding the logistical problems of Ivan’s family, I simply respectfully underline that this belongs to personal choices covered by “privacy” which do not concern the S Martino Hospital.

As a mother I have the duty to verify whether outside the national perimeter there are techniques that can help a situation like Ivan’s which could conceivably risk becoming chronic.

I sincerely thank all the people who understood the case of my son Ivan with their contribution, as well as my legitimate duty and right as a mother to carry out all the assessments in his favor.

Mother Monica