Blueprint Of Toy Boat

Racconigi

Ad un anno dalla presentazione del progetto editoriale Assistenza, medicina, società alla Fiera del Libro di Torino, pubblichiamo per l'attualità dei temi trattati l'intervento che in quella occasione propose Alessandro Vallarino, direttore della collana nonchè dirigente medico del Dipartimento di salute mentale dell'Asl 17 Fossano-Saluzzo Mondovì.

Ringrazio tutti voi per la vostra presenza che è un segno incoraggiante di interesse and curiosity for this initiative. Dr. Gazzera for the loving support that also gives this part of my job. Our distinguished guests, publishers, and Alessandro Fabrizio Dutto, the Foundation's Book careful willingness. Massimo Moraglia, which can not be here today so it replaces, and Massimo Tornabene for the enthusiasm with which they have accepted my proposals. I have many things to say but I'd rather answer your questions. My profession is psychiatry clinic, I deal with people and their treatment programs, operators, a center based in Racconigi the place for rehabilitation. I am here to attend the presentation of these two volumes, which are one of the fruits of a renewed local interest in the recent history of psychiatry, which is more general so that, as you know, recently came on theater stages - I think of Ascanio Celestini - and even in the Sanremo Festival. I've never worked in a mental hospital, I started working a decade ago of people - patients and practitioners - who have lived even longer, I met them in the transition of their passage from the ancient institution of the "new" framework, as a new living space, in the territory. My interest in the history of psychiatry is born then: memories of curiosity to know what kept that place where we started to work - the I told you that center is located on the premises that once housed the refectory of the Sisters in service to the asylum. We have recovered from the basement, literally, furniture, archives, records, photographs, publications, Dr.. Gazzera recovered reels shot in Super8 in the fifties. All of this began a painstaking recovery over the years has resulted in a project of the Archive Superintendence of Piedmont a thesis, a day of the FAI under the leadership of Massimo Moraglia and Gianfranco Capello took the first point the situation. Above all, we have collected stories and experiences of former patients and former nurses, and we have been concerned about two things: one is to integrate all this with the excavation rehabilitation work everyday and the other giving the public the results of this integration. A group of university students in Turin made a short film, under the guidance of a young racconigese, friends of the theater company Cantoregi Project have created two theater productions and social theater of memory, receiving between those ex-patients and former nurses. Each of these initiatives has been fostered by an intense match, and I must say that the spaces of the old psychiatric hospital Racconigi charge a constant curiosity - for example, students in the degree of health professionals and the dozens of tours that I have asked. Finally, we submitted our project Research on the former psychiatric hospital Racconigi in Turin World Book Capital with Rome, because the history and status of Neuro there seemed emblematic and representative for the province of Cuneo. The problem of former mental hospitals today is particularly important for their re-use: from this point of view, the potential is enormous, as much as the urban problems they represent and the amount of investment in their implementation requires. We have put forward some proposals: the park of the former psychiatric hospital Racconigi since 2001, the summer home to a theater festival that seems to be growing, it's called The Factory of Ideas and the title wants to pay homage to the past - in the years sessanta il sarcasmo dei racconigesi lo chiamava così – ma anche il presente – la necessaria propulsione creativa a pensare un futuro per questo luogo. Questi libri e le ricerche che stiamo progettando per il futuro sono un modo per dire che almeno una quota dei progetti di recupero di aree urbane come quella del manicomio di Racconigi, a nostro parere, dovrebbe essere rivolta al recupero della memoria. Perché vedete, lo scrivo meglio nell’introduzione al primo volume, non vale sostenere che è anacronistico o peggio pleonastico continuare ad occuparsi del manicomio, perché ormai non c’è più, è superato. Il manicomio non un è monolite, come dice Francesco Cassata nell’introduzione ad un altro bel libro Massimo Moraglia, "nor a system of class oppression without nuances and contradictions, but a place of many conflicts and divergent strategic choices, in which the traditional figure of the psychiatrist, as the sole captain of the ship of fools, leaves the field to a dynamic mosaic, which includes in addition to doctors, administrative officers, public administrations, civil engineers, surveyors, land speculators, economic actors, citizens. " In the words of another friend and student of the history of psychiatry, Paul Pelosi, the asylum is a reality immanent in relations between care, medicine and society, which is the title of the series begun by Arab generously Fenice, può facilmente riprodursi nelle odierne pratiche quotidiane. Per questo motivo studiarlo non è un accessorio erudito ma un’imprescindibile fondamento della pratica. Il primo volume, Effimeri entusiasmi e quotidiane sofferenze, prova a raccontare il processo che ha condotto all’apertura ed al primissimo funzionamento del manicomio di Racconigi, nel lontano 1871 e proprio nella prospettiva di questi rapporti. Ma voi non sapete quale stupore ho provato accorgendomi di quanta attualità fossero intrise le pagine degli Atti del Consiglio Provinciale di Cuneo, le considerazioni che guidavano gli amministratori di allora nella scelta di aprire il manicomio. Un esempio su tutti, che forse non ha trovato posto nel volume: parla il consigliere Bernardi, the seat is that of June 20, 1870, must explain to the other directors of the Province, doubtful and worried, the general economic plan for the installation of the asylum, "the Commission was animated by the principle of economy and tried to avoid the waste of money . True, the number rose to one hundred ricoverandi of the initial implantation. But in considering this question we must not forget that the province is driven by a great need, not the free choice of the best. Must provide an adequate number of beds is a matter of humanity, to avoid what happened Vicoforte text, when he was a maniac months in prison, without treatment. Moreover, the expenditure made by will be 80 thousand pounds, to accommodate all the 250 patients in which the Province has estimated will be required, but a room that contained more than 600 students of the former Military College teachers, educators and administrators will be able to at least five hundred maniacs, and so to receive pension from the other provinces, who have the problem of surplus. Now that you consider the minimum pension, as you pay the asylum of Turin, is 1.25 pounds per day, while elsewhere you pay more, and we believe that the government is 99 cents a day for military hospitals sick, with the benefit of the same hospitals. Finally, it is considered that should be avoided in the luxury and ease of care and food che corrisponde alla condizione sociale dei ricoverati, e sarà facile prevedere che la Provincia dovrà trarne guadagno”. A due anni dall’apertura del Manicomio, il numero dei ricoverati proveniente dalla sola provincia di Cuneo ascenderà a più di trecento, nel 1878 il saldo tra ammissioni e dimissioni raggiungerà a fine anno un’occupazione di quattrocento posti letto per superare i cinquecento nel 1892, con una spesa annua di 225.000 lire (il direttore medico ne guadagnava 500 al mese, un infermiere 30, un litro di vino costava 20 centesimi, chi poteva permetterselo per un giorno di ricovero pagava poco più di una lira) e con una progressione inarrestabile che renderà irrimediabilmente vano ogni sogno di guadagno. Thereafter, for the next 120 years, the asylum will be a terrible problem for public finances, until its final closure (which took place in 1978 but twenty years later) will be sanctioned by their own budget bill.
Alessandro Vallarino