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The Mobile Clinic is the little travelling hospital of motorcycle riders. Ever since 1977, the year when it was created, the Mobile Clinic has been the place chosen by the paddock people for being cured and cared for. Journalists, mechanics, people on the job, specialised personnel, team managers, workmen, organisers, craftsmen, everybody, in case of need, can find specialists able to help on the Mobile Clinic (since 1997, 24 hours a day), just as if they were referred to the emergency ward of a good hospital.
But it is especially riders who want the Mobile Clinic (which they feel as “their own” clinic) to be “always there”. Motorcycle riders race to overcome the limits of nature, but by doing so, they encounter serious risks and dangers. The Mobile Clinic not only tries to heal the injuries suffered by these heroes (over 500 crashes occur every year), but also creates the feeling of trust, the psychological confidence which is the irreplaceable foundation of any human enterprise, even the hardest and most impossible.
And if, when laying down a challenge to the impossible, when racing against risk, the fate makes a rider suffer an accident, it is at the Mobile Clinic that he rises again, helped by medical science but also, and especially, by tapping the miraculous resources which dwell within human beings. One can then see how wounds are not there to bleed the rider out, but to prepare the ground and energy for rebirth; as if, by some unknown magic, man was transformed into a god-like creature. We who work on the Mobile Clinic are witnesses and accomplices to this magic and marvellous event, which like Epiphany reveals us to the birth, or rather the rebirth, of the human being. We live in the Mobile Clinic for this mission, which we accomplish by giving to our patients more love than medicines.
To continue to do this, we have built our fifth Clinica Mobile of Motorcycling. The Clinica has been set up on a Pezzaioli half-trailer, on tyres given by Michelin, by the body shop Franzisella of Varese, which was chosen not only for their acknowledged technical skills but also because all the working vehicles of the prestigious Ferrari Racing Team are built by them. The new Clinic, pulled by a tractor generously provided by RENAULT TRUCKS ITALIA, consists of a fixed part (13,560 m long, 2,52 m wide) and of two extensible parts each 13,56 m long and 1,14 m wide, for a total height of 4 m.
The Clinic is divided into:
- entrance (2,53 m long, 1,14 m wide, 2,080 m high)
- waiting room (2,53 m long, 3,46 m wide, 2,080 m high)
- treatment and physiotherapy room (2,945 m long, 2,35 m + 1,14 + 1,14 m wide, 2,080 m high)
- first aid room and IC room (2,785 m long, 2,350 m+ 1,14 + 1,14 m wide, 2,080 m high)
- Trauma care and X-ray room (3,195 m long, 2,350 m + 1,14 + 1,14 m wide, 2,080 m high)
- X-ray control and work files room (1,18 m long, 2,35 m + 1,14 m wide, 2,080 high)
- In the Clinica Mobile, eight beds have been installed. They are prototypes by ANTHOS, well-known manufacturers of medical equipment.
- The X-ray unit has been donated by the prestigious Imola-based company SACMI.
- The previous equipment has been completed with Hilterapia® and TECAR® Therapy equipment.
- The surgical instruments are supplied and kept up to date by CITIEFFE.
- 3M LINEA SALUTE has stocked the Clinica Mobile with all the provisions that have made this brand known in hospitals world-wide.
To survive, the Clinica Mobile needs support from all, and in particular from IRTA, the International Road-Racing Teams Association, of which we are part as the Medical Team, and DORNA.
To help raise funds towards the maintenance of the Clinic, Dr. Costa has written with the former F1 driver Alex Zanardi a book, "Alex Looks Skywards". All the money from the sales of this book goes towards Clinica Mobile and 'Associazione Bimbi in Gamba', Zanardi's charity in aid of young victims of limb mutilation. Doctor Costa has also recently written another book, "Grand Prix College".
Finally, our deeply-felt thanks also go to all our sponsors. Attempting the impossible is perhaps the only way given to man to attain the possible: our Mobile Clinic is a little example of this.
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