Prysmian Group supports nonprofit group MediCinema to help patients in a Milan hospital

With Prysmian Group’s support, nonprofit group MediCinema helps patients in a Milan hospital to laugh

Each week, volunteers make the rounds at Milan’s vast 1,200-bed Niguarda public hospital to sign up patients for a new kind of treatment. It’s actually based on one of the oldest medicines in the world – laughter – and is available every Thursday at the hospital’s movie theater managed by the MediCinema nonprofit group with funding from Walt Disney Italia, the Cariplo Foundation, and private donors including Prysmian Group.

At the end of last year, the Niguarda hospital transformed a former storeroom into an 80-seat theater reachable by patients from all over the hospital by foot, by bed or in a wheelchair, and is open to their family members as well. The MediCinema hospital volunteers often accompany patients to the theater.

“With this project, we want to stimulate the patients’ own desire to get well,” said Niguarda director Marco Trivelli when the theater was unveiled. “Cinema has the power to stimulate us to heal ourselves.”

MediCinema Italia was founded in 2013 by Fulvia Salvi, modeled on a program in the UK, and receives support from Italy’s Ministry of Health to carry out in-hospital relief therapy and research supported by a scientific staff. Among the latest movies played at Niguarda, for example selected by MediCinema were “Dumbo” and three Italian comedies.

We offer premier films so that every patient can feel like their normal life is continuing, as if they were at home,” said Salvi, MediCinema Italia President, who has a background in marketing and the entertainment industry. “Our screening program is selected on the basis of the type of patients involved and the need to give them relief by reducing anxiety and stress.”

Watching a film, even from a hospital bed, can be a therapeutic experience that can help reduce the perception of pain, bringing relief to patients and their families, according to a study carried out in 2017 on 240 patients at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital by Professor Celestino Pio Lombardi, who is also a consultant for MediCinema. The study took place in Gemelli Hospital’s own MediCinema theater, which was opened in 2016.

Prysmian Group contributed to the Niguarda cinema by donating Afumex Plus 1000 (FG16OM16) low voltage cables in two different sizes, in accordance with the CPR (Construction Products Regulation).

The Niguarda cinema near Prysmian’s world headquarters in Milan is just one of the projects that Prysmian has funded as part of its policy of supporting programs that bring long-term benefits to communities where the Group operates. In 2018, it donated 200,000 euros to local communities in cash and in kind. (link to Sustainability report).

Prysmian’s Corporate Citizenship and Philanthropy policy was updated in 2019 to identify all activities that can help satisfy the needs of the community or communities, in line with the vision, mission, values, Code of Ethics and Policies put in place by the Group, Prysmian’s policy says.

The policy defines the main types of deliverable contributions, the guiding principles and operating methods, as well as monitoring and the modes of communication of the activities.

In 2019, Prysmian Group is helping Italy’s National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan open a new exhibition space called the New Leonardo Galleries dedicated to innovation in the fields of military engineering, flight and natural phenomena studies of the artist Leonardo da Vinci. The Prysmian Group supported the project by donating approximately 20,000 meters of various types of cable (Afumex low voltage cables in accordance with the CPR; fire-resistant and low smoke and toxic gas emission cables; PVC cables in compliance with the CPR, copper and optical fiber data cables) for the wiring in the construction zone.

In France, Prysmian Group supported the NGO "Electriciens sans frontières" (ESF) last year with a cables donation, used in the group’s projects including, above all, the transmission and delivery of power to developing countries and communities afflicted by catastrophes.

In North America, Prysmian Group has sponsored several non-profit organizations, such as the Lake Russell Tourism Coalition, the Freshwater Coast Foundation and the Irmo Chapin Recreation Commission, which are committed to supporting the most needy.

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Prysmian Group supports nonprofit group MediCinema to help patients in a Milan hospital

Prysmian Group supports nonprofit group MediCinema to help patients in a Milan hospital

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