Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, an Institution belonging to the Holy See, is the largest European Paediatric Hospital and Research Center. It cooperates with the main international centres of the sector, acting as a point of reference for children and teenagers coming from all over Italy and from abroad.
ONE HOSPITAL, MULTIPLE LOCATIONS
Healthcare is provided at 6 different hospitalization and care facilities: the historical headquarters on the Gianicolo Hill, in Rome, to which the San Paolo Fuori le Mura and Viale Baldelli facilities were added over the years, along with Palidoro and Santa Marinella facilities, located on the coast of Lazio. In 2022 the Passoscuro facility, dedicated to paediatric palliative care, was inaugurated. The Hospital has a total of 627 beds, 40 of which belong to the intensive care unit, and 22 to the neonatal intensive care unit.
San Paolo facility hosts the Hospital’s large research laboratories, equipped with the latest technologies for gene and cell research, as well as the cell factory, dedicated to the production of advanced therapy medicinal products. Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital is also home to Orphanet Italy, the world’s largest database for rare diseases, which brings together more than 40 countries.
150 YEARS OF HISTORY
Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital was founded in Rome in 1869 by the Dukes Salviati as the first Italian pediatric hospital, on the model of Paris Hôpital des Enfants Malades. In 1924, it was donated to the Holy See, thus becoming the Pope’s Hospital. In 1985 the Hospital was officially recognized as a Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS), combining medical care to an intense research activity. In 2006, the Hospital was accredited for the first time by the Joint Commission International (JCI), the organization certifying excellence in safety and quality of care worldwide. In 2014, the new research laboratories were inaugurated and, in 2019, the Hospital celebrated its 150 years of history. In 2022, the Pediatric Palliative Care Center was inaugurated in Passoscuro (Fiumicino).
HEALTHCARE
Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital provides care in all medical and surgical specialties in the paediatric field. Transplantations, genetic and metabolic diseases, medical cardiology and cardiac surgery, neurosciences, onco-haematology and rehabilitation are some of the fields of excellence in treatment and research.
In the year 2023, the hospital recorded over 95,000 emergency room visits, 29,800 admissions, 33,000 surgical and interventional procedures, and 2,710,000 outpatient services, representing some of most significant figures at the European level. Almost 32% of the patients admitted to the Hospital came from outside the region. In 2023, 501 foreign patients from 81 countries who were not residing in Italy were hospitalized.
TRANSPLANTATIONS
Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital is one of the few European centres authorized to perform all types of organ, cell and tissue transplantations in children: 348 transplantations were done in 2023, in addition to the implantation of 5 artificial hearts.
RESEARCH
In the year 2023 research activity led to 1091 scientific publications, with almost 694 research projects and 430 ongoing clinical studies. There are 25 patent families that make up the hospital's patent portfolio. Nearly 18,300 patients were entered/enrolled in the rare disease network.
ACCOMMODATION
The clinical and scientific activity of the Hospital comes with a significant effort for the accommodation of the patients’ families, in particular of those coming from outside the region, who face long therapeutic paths. Thanks to the support of a network of Associations, Foundations and hotels, in 2022 the Hospital provided free accommodation to more than 2,769 families, for a total of almost 140,700 nights/person. Approximately 8,000 cultural mediations approximately have been provided to patients of foreign origin involving 48 different languages.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
Over the years, Bambino Gesù has developed initiatives to provide local communities with highly specialized healthcare services and training programs for medical and nursing staff. These projects are based on specific agreements with governments of various countries, healthcare institutions, and international humanitarian organizations. They include distance training through a dedicated platform, MedTraining, on-the-job training sessions in partner hospitals by teams from Bambino Gesù, and residential training periods for local healthcare personnel in Rome.
Currently, projects are active in 12 countries: Jordan, Cambodia, Japan, Kenya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia. Furthermore, there are four signed agreements with four other Countries: Egypt, Bolivia, Albania, Kazakhstan.
Every year the Hospital receives and treats dozens of humanitarian patients not supported by the Italian National Health Service, mainly children coming from abroad and suffering from severe diseases or war-related injuries, who could not be treated in their own Countries. In 2023, a total of 214 children were hosted, with 85 of them lacking any financial coverage and thus receiving full care and assistance thanks to Bambino Gesù Onlus Foundation.