I am Alicja Rysz  and I have been working for the Fatebenefratelli social welfare centre for the last 20 years. At the outset, I was full of enthusiasm, energy and ideals; but the centre was then a place that drastically needed change. Patients with cognitive difficulties often are unaware of their needs and it is easy to make mistakes or to neglect certain aspects of care.

Today, the centre is no longer what it was 20 years ago: the patients’ quality of life has improved significantly and this is due primarily to the work of the Co-Workers, who as a result of a great deal of educational work on training, motivations and determination have learned new approaches to patient care that have then been passed on to successive generations.

In itself, professional competence can be enough to guarantee patients that they will be getting decent care. But thanks to the Charism of Saint John of God and his works, in recent years the activity of the centre has become much more; the principal objective is now that of reducing to a bare minimum the feelings of emptiness and loneliness that so often afflicts patients in an institutionalized setting.

There have been wonderful moments in which we were able to make the patients feel important, encouraging their ideas and their projects. The good feeling among Co-Workers enables them to work in synergy and therefore to be able to give even more than their jobs generally require and to pay greater attention to their patients’ needs. But all this requires a continuingstruggle against adversity and I think that only a hospital organized in accordance with the style of Saint John of God and following the practical example of the Fatebenefratelli and their Charismatic management can overcome the difficulties in making true Hospitality possible.