On 14 June, the General Curia hosted the first of the two meetings scheduled to be held in 2017 by the Brussels Hospitality Europe office with the Reference Persons from the European Provinces of the Order and of the Sisters Hospitallers. It was attended by more than 20 delegates appointed by the Provincial Curias. The meeting was opened by Brother Rudolf Knopp, as President of Hospitality Europe on his return from the Canonical Visitation to the Austrian Province.

The Director, Carlo Galasso, reported on the work that had been accomplished by the European office in the first half of 2017, stressing in particular the recent adoption of the proposal for a pilot project, being supported by the Office, on violent behaviour by psychiatric patients. The European Commission had funded the project by over €1 million. He also explained the main matters currently being discussed with the European Community institutions, including the European pillar for social rights, the European Solidarity Corps, among the priorities of the 2018-2020 Work Programme on medical research. On the ongoing projects, he emphasised impact and widespread use within Europe of the mobile phone application “Mefacilyta DESkTOP” designed under the project for people with the disabilities being promoted by Hospitality Europe (the Erasmus+ programme).

He was followed by Francesco Vallebona – his co-worker at the Brussels office – who illustrated the programmes of the European Commission dedicated to protecting social rights and to the most vulnerable sections of the population (women, children, migrants, etc), fuelling the debate on the any initiatives and projects that the Provinces could jointly develop in this sector.

In the course of the ensuing debate and sharing of ideas between the members, the Barcelona paediatric hospital presented its programme to build Europe’s largest children’s cancer hospital. Other issues debated included caring for refugees and migrants in the Provincial facilities, new robotic instruments and technologies to be used in the provision of psychiatric care, and taking part in the European competition on mother-and-child health.

The meeting then heard the report by Brother Calixto Plumed made (Andalusia Province) on the European Congress of the Order’s Professional Nursing Schools (Granada, 6-7 April 2017), which is intended to be used as a benchmark event to promote international synergies between Nursing Schools in the coming years.

At the end of the meeting, Brother Rudolf thanked the Reference Persons for their attendance and for having actively taken part in the meeting, and announced that the next meeting would be held in Rome (at the General Curia) on 5 December.