After little more than two weeks, the moment has come to make an assessment of the first Camillian day of the heart which on Wednesday involved ten cities in Italy and a total of fourteen institutions which provided free cardiology examinations.

These are the numbers of the Day:

– A total of 110 people were examined at institutions of the Fondazione Opera San Camillo which adhered to the iniziative (the “San Camillo” nursing home and the “San Pio X” nursing home in Milano, the “San Camillo” nursing home in Cremona, the “San Camillo” IRCCS  in Venice, the “San Camillo” polyclinic in Bologna, and the “San Camillo” nursing home in Forte dei Marmi).

– 100 people were examined in Catania, at the “Morgagni” polyclinic and the “Vittorio Emanuele” hospital.

– 65 people were examined at the “Adrastea” nursing home of Palermo.

– 48 people were examined at the “Madre Giuseppina Vannini” hospital of Rome and 4 at the “Villa Luisa” nursing home of the same city.

– 50 people were examined at the  “San Camillo” nursing home of Acireale.

– 50 people were examined at the “Santa Maria della Pietà” hospital of Casoria (Naples).

– 26 people were examined in front of the generalate house of the Camillians at the mobile clinic which had been made available by the “Misericordia” association of  Rome.

At Acireale and Catania, in particular, precedence was given to people with low-incomes, many of whom are not able to manage their state of health and often go to emergency hospital structures because of glucose-metabolic deficits, hypertension crises and forms of arrhythmia.

The same was the case in front of the generalate house of the Camillians in Piazza della Maddalena in Rome where help was provided by a number of volunteers of Caritas and the Community of Sant’Egidio.

There was also great participation by people who had for some time neglected their state of health in Palermo where bookings also came from neighbouring towns such as Bagheria, Carini, Villabate and Terrasini. Here, in particular, volunteers of the “San Camillo de Lellis – onlus” Association entertained the patients and told them about St. Camillus and the Order. All of the participants were given a little paper image of the saint and a folded leaflet containing the life and the works of St. Camillus, as well as a gift from the Order and the Lay Camillian Family.

In general, in almost all the institutions patients were encountered who had severe arterial hypertension (many of who were not receiving pharmacological treatment), electrocardiogram alterations, systolic murmur, ventricular hypertrophy, diabetes or obesity. Some patients had pace-makers and heart disease of a certain seriousness, and in their case their pharmacological therapy was optimised.

According to the case examined, patients were advised to have blood tests, echocardiogram tests with eco-colour-Doppler, low sodium diets or low calorie diets.

    All the people who were examined (amongst whom were a number of citizens from outside the European Union) expressed their appreciation of the Camillian Day of the Heart and asked to be contacted about similar future events, confirming that they had learnt about the initiative both from TV (in particular from the programme “Medicina 33” of Rai2 presented by Luciano Onder) and from newspapers and Internet sites,  which had disseminated news about it on a large scale.

This event, organised during the fourth centenary of the death of St. Camillus de Lellis, was thus a notable success and fully achieved the two goals it had set itself: to foster suitable medical consultations in the field of cardiology (during a period of economic crisis when it is not easy fro everyone to have medical examinations) and to make the message of St. Camillus, the patron saint of the sick and of health-care workers, known about.

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