Oltrarno

I never really know what is going on here. For some reason everything seems more surreal when it is said in Italian, and Tuesday I went to a meeting that greatly contributed to my confusion, but also cleared up a few questions. To start, the meeting occurred because I finally found out more about my internship. Christine and I will be working with the Medici per I Diritti Umani (Doctors for Human Rights). To find out more about the organization and our roles Christine and I were told by Monica to get on a bus, take it across the Arno and get off at the first stop. From here we were told to walk into the bar (although she forgot to mention it was down an alley and in a bad part of town) and ask the person behind the counter where to find the class for doctors. Thus after our adventure through the dark streets of oltrarno Christine and I found a group of people working to help provide health care to the population in Italy that is often ignored. It was a very needed escape from the often fake and overcrowded center of Florence into a more eclectic and real Italy. The group was passionate and well educated, there was even a 25 year old woman who had just passed her exam to be a doctor last Friday. Many of the people in the group were a type of Italian hippie and neither fashion nor art history were mentioned once. I was finally able to step away from the history and art that Florence is known for and into contemporary Florence. I finally saw that Florence is more then its past it is a progressive city and there are things happening here today that warrant as much attention as Italy's relics.

Which brings me to contemporary Italian health care. Italy has the second best healthcare system in the world according to WHO, however many Italians dislike their system and immigrants and homeless are often uninsured due to complicated legalities necessary to access the system. There seems to be limited middle ground, and most people are either frustrated with the system or think it's great. Either way it appears to function better then the system in the US because all citizens have access to the health care they need and no one is forced into bankruptcy because of health issues. This is where my internship comes in. In Italy you need a SSN to be able to receive health care and many immigrants and homeless can not obtain an SSN however there are other options availble to them, sort of. I don't understand the system that well yet but this is a short and slightly dry article explaining how the Italian health care system works. I haven't decided my position yet, but I hope my experience with Medici per i Diritti Umani will shed some light on the issues surrounding Italy's universal health care.