No more strangers

Project realized thanks to the contribution of the Tuscany Region - Socio-health orientation project aimed at foreign women residing in Casentino

The project aims to ensure that foreign women residing in Casentino (AR) can have access to hospital health services in a customary manner; the precise objective of this project is the reduction of the costs of emergency medicine and the possibility of carrying out continuous monitoring of diseases thanks to specific, active and conscious prevention.

The aim of the project is to achieve a general improvement in the health conditions of foreign women thanks to an increased awareness of diseases, prevention and treatment.The idea arises from the observation that improper access occurs at local and provincial level. to emergency health services (such as first aid) and above all there is a lack of information on hygiene and the prevention of diseases, especially infectious ones. The tendency to inadequate use of the health care proposal mainly affects the foreign female population, in particular as regards the sphere of maternal, reproductive and children's health and, last but not least, domestic violence. Specifically, the condition of foreign women residing in the area turns out to be critical, not only socially, but also and above all at the level of health indicators: it is in fact foreigners who suffer most from problems such as premature birth and low birth weight, and to resorting to voluntary termination of pregnancy in a higher percentage. This discomfort should be dealt with immediately through very specific methods, which invest skills and time in training the women themselves and in bringing them to the knowledge of prevention.

Tahomà wants: To be a physical meeting place between women belonging to foreign communities in the Casentino area. Offer foreign women training that will make them more aware and able to achieve their own autonomy in accessing health services. To create, with and for the local ASL, a valid point of reference for linguistic and cultural mediation problems in the doctor-patient relationship. To train cultural mediators previously identified during the ifocus group. Repeat the cycles of training meetings to allow a comparison also with the new foreign users who have recently established themselves in the area.

During the whole cycle of focus groups, the participating women will be informed that the operators will be available for additional help. At the beginning of the training, an official presentation of the Listening Desk will be made and the services it offers will be illustrated: accompaniment to health facilities, help in booking exams, mediation, free legal advice. The purpose of the help desk is to allow women to go beyond distrust of the doctor and beyond their own interpretation of the pathology (often influenced by beliefs and traditions).

The project aims to reach, as an indirect beneficiary, also the ASLs. In fact, due to the recent and significant migratory phenomenon, the medical staff of the local health authorities found themselves facing problematic situations due to linguistic and cultural barriers and mistrust due to completely distant approaches to medicine. The operators of the Tahomà association, during the accompaniment of asylum seekers hosted at their CAS to medical examinations, encountered difficulties in communicating with the staff of the ASL. The difficulty lies, first of all, in meeting visions of the body, health and the sense of care that are very distant from the Western medical approach. In this regard, Tahomà identifies a possible help to the ASL in the figure of the cultural mediator who will be female and who will facilitate the understanding of the health system for foreign patients and will strengthen their trust in medical personnel (who, to date, encounter enormous difficulties in dialogue with foreign patients).