The San Martino Hospice is closing, the place where for twenty years many people from Como, and their families, have found support, listening and love, even before health care, in the last days of the difficult path of the disease.
And the communication, which has arrived in recent days to healthcare personnel and, consequently, to the families of guests, is a bolt from the blue for the city which risks losing a precious and unique place.
“This year we should have celebrated twenty years since the opening of the Hospice and, instead, we find ourselves facing its closure – he comments Cristian Bellolipalliative care nurse and director of the facility – while I want to stay out of any political or administrative controversy, I have the duty to defend this service and make it clear what the Como community risks losing if the Hospice were to close permanently, it is a question Human”.
Because here, among the greenery of the park that housed the former mental hospital, there is much more than just a place in which to live the last days of life with adequate healthcare but there is, indeed, still life worthy of being lived until the last moment: “I’m sure that ten beds could be found without problems where we could hospitalize the patients we follow, but there would no longer be pizza parties with the families in the garden or the son’s concert for the sick mother here in the greenery with all the guests listening, they will simply die in a hospital bed – continues Belloli – I know how difficult it is to keep a facility like this open but, if we really believe that the end of life is a value and so is the comfort that the families, losing them is a crime and we have the duty to defend humanity, remembering that there are places that must be managed not only with money, but above all with the heart”.
And precisely to tell the extraordinary beauty and importance of this place capable of transforming the worst pain into sweetness and love, the San Martino Hospice will open its doors to everyone on Saturday 29 June at 4pm: “It will be a moment to make ourselves known better by the city and make people understand how precious a structure like this is because, as staff, even before our professional future, we are worried about the families who will no longer have such an important point of reference – he concludes – that afternoon we will also launch some balloons with some messages written by the relatives of our guests and the invitation to anyone who finds one to let us have it back. It is a symbolic way of saying that, at a time when the Hospice risks flying away and being lost, when we fall to the ground something of what we have built so far will come back”.
“The decision was made in light of management problems that have been going on for a long time – they said ASP Consortium. which has managed the Hospice since 2010 – the timing of the closure is not yet known in detail, which will be defined in the coming weeks and we do not know if the structure will be managed by others in the future”.
Asst, having heard about a desirable tender to entrust the Hospice to a new manager, has not yet provided an official communication but we will provide an update as soon as possible.
