Franco Bornini, a taxi driver in the northern city of Bologna, found that the waiting list to get free physiotherapy for his dislocated right shoulder was six months long. The injury has partly disabled him, reducing the hours that he can work. Some of this care borders on luxury. Patients who undergo heart surgery are entitled to two weeks at a rehab center near Lake Garda or Lake Como, prime vacation spots in northern Italy. They receive three hours of physiotherapy in the morning and relax in the afternoon, with the state paying the tab.
Nobody is supposed to fall through the cracks, even foreigners living in Italy illegally.
In Bologna, a publicly funded health center with Arabic and Chinese translators on staff has catered exclusively to immigrant women and their children for the past nine years. The center doesn't even ask to see patients' identify papers. This sense of inclusion and security is more than what many immigrants feel in the United States, especially those who are in the country illegally. Many of the latter say they are afraid to avail themselves of the health care system for fear that information about them will be reported to the police and that they will be deported. In three-quarters of Italy's regions, health officials have set up 138 public health clinics, nearly all in the past five years, especially for immigrants.