Paper short abstract:

The paper focusses on the transformations that Italian health services have gone through, as a consequence of massive arrivals of asylum seekers and refugees in the Country. Forced migrants bring specific health needs and pose new challenges to services in terms of access and care procedures

Paper long abstract:

Since the last two decades Italy has become a main target of migratory flows of forced migrants, that is people leaving Countries characterized by strong political instability and high socio-economic inequality. Even if arrivals faced a severe reduction since 2017, the presence of asylum seekers on Italian soil is still high, with irregular distribution over the peninsula. Lombardy is one of the Italian Regions with the highest numbers of migrants hosted in local reception centres; however the procedure of health assistance in Lombardy is not regionally standardised and depends on political choices assumed locally. It translates into a fragmented sanitary offer, that might result in unequal access to care.

The paper aims to analyse the innovative outcomes of a project that took place in Lombardy since 2016 to 2018, named START "Crossing socio-sanitary services for asylum seekers and refugees". Such a project intended to develop a new model of taking charge of health needs of the target population, fostering cooperation between public services and third sector organizations. A qualitative research, which involved several actions such as interviews to local stakeholders, was undertaken with the purpose to build up a new model of governance. Both interviews and roundtables promoted among public and private actors implemented an integrated network of services. Furthermore, the project promoted training courses for social and sanitary professionals in order to develop new competences and skills on migration issues. The project's outcomes have shown the effectiveness of such an integrated model, with visible effects on migrants' taking charge