CHARITY

CTO (Centro Traumatologico Ortopedico), Turin (2020)

During the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Department of Anaesthesia, Revival and Intensive Care at Turin’s CTO University Hospital reached full capacity. The hospital, internationally recognised for its excellence, was for the first time in its history forced to turn away emergency patients. In this moment of acute crisis — as bureaucratic procedures delayed the release of public funds — unconventional solutions were urgently needed.

At the initiative of Professor Maurizio Berardino, Head of the Department of Anaesthesia, Revival and Intensive Care — and with Rosmarie Burki-Weibel’s consent to assume all expenses — two storage rooms were swiftly cleared and transformed into state-of-the-art intensive care units.



Thanks to this spontaneous private donation, made in memory of Urs Burki, several immunocompromised Covid-19 patients whose conditions had become life-threatening were able to receive appropriate treatment and later leave the hospital recovered. The two rooms have since continued to serve, without interruption, as critical care units for severely injured patients.