Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, at the hospital of Castel San Giovanni: by 2024 the professionals of the IRCCS Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute will work. Thanks to a joint project, the activities already present in the Tidone Valley  will qualify further and can increase in volume. Rizzoli’s Surgeons and specialists, the only public orthopedic IRCCS in Italy and a pole of international excellence, will do scheduled orthopedic surgery, with particular reference to hip and knee prosthesis, and orthopedic rehabilitation.

In addition to the operative units of Orthopedics and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Rizzoli will also manage an Anesthesia Unit that will ensure the activities of support to the surgical path.

The important news has presented today by the two general directors, Paola Bardasi and Anselmo Campagna, with the the regional councillor for Health Policies Raffaele Donini and Lucia Fontana, the mayor of Castel San Giovanni.

The agreement is part of a collaboration between the Usl of Piacenza and IRCCS Rizzoli already started and consolidated for over a decade.

"Till now, the professionals of Rizzoli - said the director Bardasi - operated in our hospitals for some high-level specialist skills, such as pediatric orthopaedics and Oncological Orthopaedics. For our patients it has always been a very welcome service, which limits the movement of children or people who are fragile and already suffering from the disease. Today we are ready to further develop this alliance, which has proved so strategic, to consolidate the vocation of the presence in Val Tidone. For the province of Piacenza it is a great opportunity. In fact, we will have three teams in place to manage as many crucial sectors. On the Orthopedics field, Rizzoli professionals will exclusively manage elective surgery more oriented to diseases of the lower and upper limb. As part of Rehabilitation, they will be able to perform their duties both in ordinary and outpatient stay. The professionals of the Rizzoli will also ensure the activities of Anesthesia to support the surgical path, such as pre hospitalization and operating room".

"We are working with great conviction about the project of the orthopedic and rehabilitation center at the hospital of Castel San Giovanni, to put into practice the idea of 'Rizzoli diffuse' - explains Anselmo Campagna, IOR general manager  - Our Institute brings its specialization of IRCCS, (Instituto di ricovero e cura a carattere scientifico), that is a research hospital, integrating with the Piacenza Health Board. That project is at the service of citizens in their territory: the added value of this collaboration, and the challenge of Rizzoli as an orthopedic hub at an international level, which is developed in branches detached from the Bologna parent company, is to ensure expertise, even for high-complexity performance, on the territory avoiding citizens to have to take care outside the province of Piacenza".

The agreement between Ausl and Rizzoli also provides for the implementation, in the coming months, of a series of structural interventions, with particular reference to the adaptation of the operating block. It is also planned to redevelop the hospitalization area for Orthopaedics and strengthen the technological resources of the areas of hospitalization, surgical block and rehabilitation area. The whole project will allow to increase also the volumes of performances made available to the citizens, is from the point of view of the surgical interventions, hospitalizations and outpatient visits.

Outpatient orthopedic visits will be activated as early as spring 2024; in September, instead, surgical activities and orthopedic hospitalization will begin, as well as rehabilitation. The project will be fully operational in 2026.

"It is a new confirmation -  Donini emphasizes - of the ability to the public health of the Emilia-Romagna to make system and to act as a single great organization to service of the citizens in all the region. In this way it ensures to each individual territory the highest quality of health care for citizens, thanks to a flexibility that allows you to share the skills of professionals across multiple territories, so that it is not the citizens who have to move - especially for more complex diseases. So I express my gratitude to the professionals of the two companies involved, Ausl di Piacenza and IRCCS Rizzoli, for the commitment they will ensure in this case too".