Today, the 118 assistance service, active 24 hours a day throughout Italy, is 30 years old, and for two years it has become the trench of the pandemic with crews and vehicles occupied up to 60 percent in the worst periods of the second wave in the autumn of 2020. More today 118, explains Mario Balzanelli, National President of SIS118, in one out of three cases of calls for Covid, takes care of bringing patients to the hospital.
"With COVID-19 we, 118 operators, have withstood the most frightening assault on the life and health of Italians after the Second World War, securing the entire National Health System.
And even today, in the fifth wave, that assault is in full swing, people, albeit less frequently than in phases 1 and 2 of the pandemic, continue not to breathe, and we close ranks ", explains Balzanelli.
The first nucleus 118 was born in Bologna on 1 June 1990 on the occasion of the World Cup.
At the same time, 118 was activated in Udine but the first service to cover an entire province was born in Gorizia in 1991, chosen as a laboratory by the FVG Region which, together with Emilia-Romagna, was therefore the first region to activate the service. .
In 1990 Bologna Soccorso was still an independent nucleus, but already answered the number 118.
The "118" service, as it is today, was established later by the "De Lorenzo decree" signed by the President of the Republic Francesco Cossiga on 27 March 1992, and published in the Official Gazette no.
76 of March 31, 1992, where 118 operational centers were established also in the other cities, on the basis of the innovations introduced in Bologna.
"Thirty years, very intense and passionate, of care and care, with total and unconditional dedication to the sick, concretely close to those who suffer, at zero distance, incessantly, here and now, day and night, at any time . Intent, simply, in the very limited time frame, to save lives. Countless lives. In these thirty years - adds Balzanelli - people have understood very well, because directly on their skin, and on that of their loved ones, that in the moment of the unexpected danger of life, we are the certainty of the state that there is.
Precisely the always permanent and always looming threat of the emergency and maxemergency, temporary and proper, let's call it COVID-19 or the threat of war, make the top institutional decision-makers, Parliament and the Government reflect: the 118 Territorial Emergency System is a good of the nation, it is a good for each and every one, inalienable, because 118 is the life-saving shield of the country ".