Rome, 17 September 2019 - St. Giuseppe Moscati (1880 - 1927), the Italian doctor proclaimed a saint by Giovanni Paul II in 1987, could soon become the patron saint of 118 and of the national health emergency. Thanks to the initiative desired by Italian Society System 118 e Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma for the first time an Italian university and a scientific society join forces to give support to the health emergency sector by linking the world of medical aid to the luminous figure of the holy doctor.
The petition for the recognition of San Giuseppe Moscati was presented today atUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma in an event in which they participated among others Mario Balzanelli SIS President 118 e Felice Eugenio Agrò, Director of Anesthesia and Intensive Care at the Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital together with the highest authorities of the Roman university.
" Giuseppe Moscati is the forerunner of 118 - underlined the president of SIS118 in his speech Mario Balzanelli - He was the first to rush to the acute and critical patient, the university professor who reached the most seriously ill, even in the middle of the night, outside the hospital, the doctor who treated and who at the same time cared, always present, tireless, faithful to the patient understood as a dimensional viaticum in which he found, through faith, the full realization of his overwhelming ability to love. System 118 sees Giuseppe Moscati as a "lighthouse in the night", a powerful ally, a safe guide for all operators, doctors, nurses, drivers-rescuers throughout the country. With confidence - concludes Balzanelli - we hope that the Italian Episcopal Conference and the Holy See will take our request to heart, proclaiming San Giuseppe Moscati Patron Saint of the 118 System and of Emergency Medicine and Surgery - National Urgency. "
St. Giuseppe Moscati was also a researcher, scholar and man of great charity: a man who put God at the center of his life and the sick at the center of his action, as explained by the Director of Anesthesia and Intensive Care of the Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital Felice Eugenio Agrò: “Giuseppe Moscati knew how to unite science and faith in an inseparable way in his action. For him, study and research were naturally aimed at the good of the person, that "salus" of the Latins which was for him health and salvation at the same time. His way of being close to patients with his life and his tireless commitment in the hospitals of Naples as in the major emergencies of his time make him a fundamental witness and a unique example that we would like to guide the action of all people involved in the emergency healthcare, from volunteers to emergency department heads".
The collection of signatures will be operational in all regions until the end of November thanks to initiatives starting in the next few days throughout Italy and will have the aim of bringing the devotion of citizens, patients, doctors, nurses, drivers to the Italian Episcopal Conference -rescuers of 118, volunteers of the national medical-surgical emergency. The signatures will be delivered to Rome at the end of the collection while a report containing the reasons for the request has already been presented in recent days. The launch of the petition for San Giuseppe Moscati patron of 118 and of the health emergency falls on the eve of the opening of the emergency room of the Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital scheduled for next spring, a service to the local area and the professional commitment of many people who will find a fundamental point of reference in the figure of the Neapolitan saint.
