Fighting addictions with the Gemelli University Hospital
Doors are now open at the new Integrated Psychiatric Centre for Research, Treatment and Prevention of Addictions (CEPID), the result of a collaboration between the Gemelli University Hospital Foundation and the Lottomatica Foundation.
A state-of-the-art facility staffed by highly qualified personnel with specialised equipment, where citizens can turn for assistance and support. The Gemelli University Hospital’s new Integrated Psychiatric Centre for Research, Treatment and Prevention of Addictions (CEPID) is now a reality. The centre has now been officially inaugurated with the symbolic cutting of the ribbon, to celebrate this initiative between the Gemelli University Hospital Foundation and the Lottomatica Foundation.
The opening ceremony was attended by the Dean of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Franco Anelli, Director of the Unit of Clinical and Emergency Psychiatry of Gemelli University Hospital, Gabriele Sani, President of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Antonio Gasbarrini, Director-General of the Gemelli University Hospital Foundation Marco Elefanti, and Director of Clinical Governance, Rocco Bellantone. There to represent the Lottomatica Foundation was its Chairperson Riccardo Capecchi, together with representatives from the Advisory Board, composed of Augusta Iannini, Alfonso Celotto, Maurizio Ferrera and Silvia Salis, as well as Professor Franco Anelli himself.
CEPID has been set up within the Clinical and Emergency Psychiatry Unit of the Gemelli University Hospital and is led by Dr Marco Di Nicola. The centre, staffed by the medical, nursing, technical and administrative personnel at Gemelli University Hospital, will provide patients with day hospital treatment.
The aim of the centre is to develop clinical and research activities, with the goal of preventing, fighting and treating pathological addiction disorders. In this sense, the intention is that CEPID will provide a better understanding of addictions from an epidemiological perspective, help to optimise diagnostic and treatment pathways and improve socio-educational programmes.
The three-year collaboration agreed between the Lottomatica Foundation and the Gemelli University Hospital Foundation is based on three pillars: support for the treatment of addictions, research and training.
”This is a very important day for the Lottomatica Foundation and for all of us,”, commented Capecchi, who went on to say, “Today, we are not only inaugurating a cutting-edge centre for the diagnosis and treatment of all kinds of addictions, but we are doing so alongside a leader in national and international health. We would like to thank the Gemelli University Hospital, and are excited to have forged this partnership with them. Health is a core area of the Foundation’s activities and is a challenge that demands maximum commitment, passion and a sense of responsibility towards the community”.
Professor Gabriele Sani, Director of the Clinical and Emergency Psychiatry Unit at the Gemelli University Hospital and Full Professor of Psychiatry at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, reminded us that – CEPID is part of the long tradition of care the Psychiatry Unit has provided in the field of addiction since the 1990s. Gemelli University Hospital has always tackled these issues with an approach based on the awareness that, beyond the different clinical presentations, there is an underlying psychopathological and neurophysiological mechanism that is, if not unique, then at least has many points of convergence. This means we shouldn’t be focusing so much on a specific addiction, but instead on the process underlying the dependency. As addictive disorders are multiphasic progressive and likely to be chronic, they require a model of care, rather than a cure”.