ITALIAN DERMATOLOGICAL CENTER – ITALIAN DERMATOLOGICAL CENTER
On April 2006, the Italian Dermatological Center (IDC, new denomination assumed by the Italian Dermatological Hospital), in accord with the Tigray Regional Health Bureau and the University of Mekelle, has been moved to the district of Ayder, in the centre of the city of Macallè. The new structure is part of a new university hospital, with 450 beds, inaugurated at the same time as the opening of our department. The place, further to be new, is also very ample and is divided in a wing devoted to the outpatient and one to the inpatient. The IDC has 30 beds, 2 clinics for the visits of the external patients, a room for the medications, a laboratory for the microbiological investigations, a surgical room, a room for the counselling and the HIV test, a pharmacy where medicines are free for the patients. The beds have been doubled increasing, therefore, notably the possibilityof help and reducing the time of attending for the refuge, where necessary. It is, besides, available a library endowed with computer and Internet connection that also allows the activity of teleconsultation. The IDC, in fact, belongs to the alliance Italian Hospitals in the world, coordinated by the Office of the Health, that allows the information interchange, consultations and scientific data connecting Italian Sanitary Centers in the World put in 22 countries with the Institutes of Refuge and Care to Scientific (IRCCS) Character in Italy. The new structure, thanks to the amplification of the spaces, the number of beds and to the accessibility of the hospital, situated to the centre of the city, allowed a general increase of the relief activity in a region in which the pathologies of the skin often represent the first cause of death of the out-patient.
The new spaces, also facilitate the activity of training of the local medical staff, training already started in the village of Quihà with theoretical-practical courses of dermatology, venereal diseases and infectious and tropical disease. The large space that surrounds the new hospital, the waiting room, finally indoor, the free care and the attention wherewith the medical staff responds to the typical kindness of the local population, make the IDC a place of care and reception, in a country in whom the big poverty still dominant guarantees health assistance only to that part of population able to pay the medical performance.