The L’Arca sull’albero (The Ark in the Tree) a children’s hospice in Bologna has been officially inaugurated on Thursday 14th June 2024 and will be open to patients and families starting from the fall. The hospice, funded and built by the Fondazione Hospice MariaTeresa Chiantore Seràgnoli Onlus is the first of its kind in the Emilia Romagna Region. Accredited by the Region, the Ark will welcome children and young people up to 18 years of age with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions and their families.
The hospice will care for children, together with their families, from 0 to 18 years of age with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions and significant clinical complexity, compounded by spiritual, social, family and relational needs. The hospice will provide outpatient, day care and in-patient care for children and their families putting their health, wellbeing, dreams and desires for recreation first, providing both recreational and educational activities alongside clinical care. Care may last for many years into adulthood. It will be staffed by a multidisciplinary team of specialists in children’s palliative care trained through specific courses, university masters degrees and internships, organised by the Academy of Palliative Medicine, the educational arm of the MTC Seràgnoli Hospice Foundation,
The hospice was conceived to offer young patients the experience of living in a real tree house, and is spread over four floors and sections connected by light overhead covered walkways to the main central body of the hospice. Built amongst trees, it is set in a 16,000 square garden and is designed as an ark in the trees where they can find relief and compassion, enveloped in the magic and natural beauty of a forest. It was designed by the Italian Architect Renzo Piano and aims to provide a contemporary sensibility with respect to the spaces needed to provide care. It differs from the conventional hospital structure:
- it is not a closed place, but an open one;
- it is not a detached and aseptic place, but a permeable one;
- it is not a place for treatment, but a “home” where one can spend time with meaning because it does not impose the renunciation of social relations and affectivity, on the contrary, it is conceived as an opportunity to experience beauty, contemplation and spirituality.
The hospice provides accredited beds and has 14 single inpatient rooms with caregiver beds and covered terraces and eight flats for the patients’ families. In the outpatient area there are seven multidisciplinary outpatient clinics and the day care service. There is also a range of rehabilitation, sensory, education and mediation areas. They envision four main types of admissions to the hospice:
- intermediate admissions which may be required in the transition from hospital to home to train the caregiver who will take care of the child at home;
- admissions to improve the patient’s clinical picture, to manage critical situations due to pain and other symptoms that are difficult to control;
- admission for periods of relief (respite care), envisaged to lighten the psychological and care burden of families and to support them in the management of any critical moments
- end-of-life admissions, where requested by the family, to accompany their child in the final stages of their illness and to guarantee adequate support, including psychological support for the child and family.
The opening ceremony on the 14th June was attended by 200 guests. After the key handover ceremony, the event continued with a few speeches and a dinner. The key was given by the President of Fondazione Hospice to Isabella Seràgnoli and Renzo Piano.
The Emilia-Romagna Region President Stefano Bonaccini and Regional Councillor for Health Policies Raffaele Donini endorsed the project and its importance for the Regional and National Health System.
Speeches were given about palliative care and the hospice itself by:
- Prof Julia Downing – Chief Executive International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN)
- Architect and life senator Renzo Piano – Architect
- landscape architect Paolo Pejrone – Landscape Architect
- Designer and illustrator Francesco Tullio Altan – renowned Italian cartoonist and illustrator
The event continued with a dinner by star chef Massimiliano Alajmo, followed by a reading by director Gabriele Salvatores and a performance by musicians Laura Marzadori and Nicola Piovani.
Presidente Stefano Bonaccini and Raffaele Donini said at the opening:
“A courageous and visionary model, a world-class excellence that we are proud to have in our region. In this marvellous tree house, children and their families will find twenty-four hours a day professionals who will take care of them, but above all they will receive support, welcome, warmth, immersed in beauty. We say thank you, truly from the heart, to the architect and senator Renzo Piano, to the Seràgnoli Foundation, and to all the professionals who have made it possible to transform a revolutionary idea into an extraordinary reality.”
Adapted from an article by the Regional Health Authority for the Emilia-Romagna region
Photos used with permission and credited to Enrico Cano Photographer