Resilienza, the new “dual diagnosis” healthcare structure: it is unique in Sicily

by Adelina Cavaleri

LEONFORTE – Resilienza was born in Leonforte. It is a new, cutting-edge healthcare facility that offers services never seen before in Sicily. For this reason, it is a point of reference for the entire island, where there are still no centers that deal with dual diagnosis. In fact, this facility provides that patients through psychotherapy treatments, together with rehabilitation programs, are helped 360°, and can face their difficulties in the best way, with programs, recreational workshops, that help them to take responsibility as well as to regain their serenity.

The general director of the ASP of Enna Mario Zappia underlined a fact that also emerged in the speech of the regional health councilor Giovanna Volo: the unique service in Sicily is the possibility of caring for people suffering from mental problems and, at the same time, from pathological addictions to substances, alcohol or gambling. The head of the provincial health department was present at the inauguration – with the manager also the health director Emanuele Cassarà and the head of the Mental Health Department of the ASP, Dr. Carmela Murè. Then the mayor Piero Livolsi and the other civil and moral authorities, led by the bishop of the diocese of Nicosia, Monsignor Giuseppe Schillaci.

The Resilience team, whose sole administrator is Dr. Elena Baccio, is made up of psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers and pedagogists. They are the professionals Maria Assunta Spinelli, Luana Di Dio, Riccardo Fratantonio, Laura Gurriera, Cettina Laneri and Nunzia Villella. “We are proud to have arrived first in Sicily – explained Dr. Baccio – and this repays us for the efforts made in all these years and naturally charges us with new and great responsibilities”.

“We as a regional government – ​​underlined councilor Volo – have considered that this is the future to which we want to rely in the way of approaching problems which, among other things, are double, because in addition to the mental disorder there is however a ‘another component, which has now become our worst condition, which is that of addiction’.

“The ASP of Enna had the burden and the honor of preparing the first agreement that was made in Sicily for a dual diagnosis community, filling what was an institutional void – explained Dr. Carmela Murè -: In the past, we had to send dual diagnosis patients out of Sicily. The fact that there is now a structure like this is remarkably important. Both the opening of the dual diagnosis community, which is a private unit with an agreement, and the opening of a public gambling center in Sperlinga, effectively places the ASP of Enna and the pathological addictions operating unit at the center of Sicily, offering services that all other ASPs will be able to use and utilize. We are particularly proud to have contributed to this important milestone – concludes Dr. Murè”.

For his part, the mayor Piero Livolsi underlined the importance of the activity promoted, but also the importance of having structures such as Villa Maria and Resilienza in the city, which place Leonforte at the center of the healthcare offer. All this at a time when essential services are also about to resume in the Ferro Branciforti Capra hospital, given that the ASP manager has assured that the operating room will be reopened by mid-July, with all that this opening entails .