The Buzzi Foundation, child-friendly care

Doubling the number of diagnostic examinations performed each year and reducing sedation times, protecting the health of children who are living through the difficult experience of illness. This is the goal of our support for child-friendly care, support that has included the donation of a 3 Tesla whole-body pediatric Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine to the Buzzi Foundation. The Foundation was created to support the Vittore Buzzi Children’s Hospital, one of 11 pediatric hospitals in Italy, the only one in Milan and the Lombardy region and, with its one hundred plus years of history, one of the country’s oldest.

The machine in question is a state-of-the-art instrument that avoids exposing young patients to any type of radiation and allows large areas of the body to be examined accurately and quickly. The speed at which images are acquired (30 to 50% faster than traditional devices) also makes it easier to compensate for any movements children may make during the examination, thereby reducing the need for sedation or making this briefer when it is absolutely necessary (usually in the case of children younger than four years of age).

The donation for the purchase and installation of the new machine is part of the Buzzi Foundation’s X-ray-free pediatric imaging project and it will help make the children’s hospital the first to be X-free, gradually replacing diagnostic methods based on that technology with harmless examinations that do not use radiation. The project represents a fundamental choice for preserving the health of those children who, for example, are undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy and are currently monitored using radiological examinations, such as CT and PET scans, that are accurate but, nonetheless, subject the young patients to radiation. 

The donation is dedicated to the memory of Maria Cristina Milano, a volunteer with the Buzzi Foundation who, during her long career in the Enel Group, embraced the values of Enel Cuore. Maria Cristina died in March 2020.

In recent years the Buzzi Foundation has been involved in the Nuovo e Grande Buzzi (“new and Great Buzzi”) project, which was launched in 2019 and is currently being completed. It will see the creation of a 10,000m2 unit spanning seven floors and connected to the current hospital. The facility, which will specialize in emergency and urgent care, is intended to become an international center of pediatric excellence where skills, specialization and care will combine to treat the most serious and complex cases.

Details

Location: Milan

Association: Buzzi Foundation for the Children’s Hospital 

Beneficiaries: child patients of the hospital 

Contribution: 1,500,000 euros

Year: 2019-2021