Great against cancer – Italy

In Italy, Soleterre collaborates with the Oncohematology department of the San Matteo Polyclinic in Pavia, intervening with actions of psychosocial support to children and families and training of medical personnel.
In Italy, the survival rate of cancer in the 0-19 age group indicates a positive increase in cases of healing: 82% of children and 86% of adolescents survive, five years after diagnosis. The quality of paediatric cancer care is indeed very high, but progress still needs to be made in early diagnosis, especially in teenagers. Soleterre has extended its intervention with the International Program for Pediatric Oncology to the pediatric oncoematology department of the San Matteo Polyclinic in Pavia.
Therapeutic successes demonstrate the great importance of integrating the bio-psycho-social and welfare aspect alongside medical therapy. This allows children and teenagers to resume their lives more easily at the end of cancer treatment. This is why we intervene with music therapy for the children admitted to the oncology department of Pavia.
In addition, the department welcomes many foreign children (60% of the inmates) who arrive in Italy from countries where cancer care is not accessible, but often linguistic and cultural differences create communication problems between staff and families. This is why Soleterre has launched a program to support their specialized linguistic mediators who are able to follow the families during the course of childcare, helping them understand all the various phases.