The call you take at 6am your time
Your sister calls from Italy, or the ward does: your father is medically stable and they are planning to discharge him on Thursday. He lives alone. After the fall — or the stroke, or the decline in dementia — going home is no longer safe. And you are eight hundred or eight thousand kilometres away, with a job, a family, and a plane ticket you have not booked yet.
The instinct is to book the first flight. Sometimes that is right. But most of what decides how this week ends can be done from where you are, provided it is done in the right order — and the single most useful thing you can do in the first twenty-four hours does not require being in the room.
Ask for "dimissioni protette" by name
Italian hospitals have a specific mechanism for exactly this situation: dimissioni protette — a protected discharge, where the hospital does not simply send the patient home but coordinates with local services first.
It exists, it is standard, and it is very often not offered spontaneously. Ask the ward, by name, for dimissioni protette, and ask to speak to the assistente sociale of the ward or hospital. That conversation is the one that matters. Do it by phone, in the first day, and follow it up in writing.
Three questions, and ask for the answers in writing (email or PEC)
- the expected discharge date — not "in a few days";
- whether dimissioni protette have been activated, and what they cover in this case;
- whether the UVM (the multidimensional assessment unit) has been asked to evaluate him, which is the gateway to RSA admission and to home-care support.
The two Italian routes, in plain English
ADI (assistenza domiciliare integrata) is publicly funded home care, arranged through the local ASL. It is real, it is free or heavily subsidised, and it is usually limited: a nurse or therapist for defined visits, not someone in the house all day. For a person who cannot be alone, ADI alone is rarely the answer.
RSA is residential care. Admission normally runs through an application to the ASL and an assessment by the UVM, which determines eligibility and, importantly, whether a place is publicly co-funded. Publicly co-funded places have waiting lists; privately paid places in the same facilities are usually available much faster — and families abroad are frequently not told that both options exist in the same building.
The bridge nobody mentions: a badante
If the discharge date arrives before a place does, the interim solution in Italy is almost always a badante — a live-in or daily carer. It is the standard Italian answer to precisely this gap: it can be arranged in days, it keeps your father at home safely, and it buys the weeks needed to choose an RSA properly instead of in panic.
It is a private cost, and it comes with employment obligations if you hire directly rather than through an agency. But it is the reason many families abroad do not have to make a permanent decision in five days.
What you can genuinely do from abroad — and what you cannot
You can: speak to the ward's assistente sociale and get the discharge plan in writing; contact RSAs directly and ask about availability, fees and admission requirements; request the UVM assessment; send documents by email or PEC; and pay deposits. Italian facilities deal with families abroad constantly, and email works.
You will need someone on the ground for: signing certain documents, the physical move, and visiting to judge a place properly. A sibling, a cousin, a trusted family friend — or a trip planned for the right week rather than the panicked one.
If nobody in Italy can act on your behalf, ask early about a delega (a written authorisation) or, in more complex situations, about the amministratore di sostegno — the court-appointed support administrator, which takes time and is not a solution for this week.
To get a shortlist of care homes in the right Italian province with real availability, Curalune Care Help sends you 3-5 suitable facilities within 24 working hours — contacts, why each one fits, and a ready-to-send message in Italian.
What it costs
An RSA place is generally split between a healthcare share, covered by the region when the person is assessed as eligible, and an accommodation share paid by the resident or the family. The resident's share commonly runs from roughly €1,500 to €3,000 a month depending on region and facility, with the north generally more expensive than the south. A private place without public co-funding costs more.
Two things to ask every facility, in writing: what exactly the monthly fee includes and excludes, and whether the place being offered is publicly co-funded or private — because that answer changes both the price and the waiting time.
Five questions to ask every facility
Do you have a place available now, not "soon"? Can you manage this level of need, and do you have a secure unit for dementia? What is the monthly fee, and what is not included? Is this a publicly co-funded place or a private one? And what documents do you need from us to proceed?
The difference between a panicked flight and a planned one
Families abroad who get through this week well are not the ones who dropped everything fastest. They are the ones who got the discharge conversation right on day one, arranged a bridge, and approached several suitable facilities in parallel instead of waiting on one answer from another time zone. Curalune Care Help gives you that starting point: 3 to 5 suitable care homes within 24 working hours, with contacts, links and a ready-to-send message in Italian you can put to all of them at once. $89, one-off. If you don't receive at least 3 facilities matching the area and criteria you gave us, we refund you in full. Start here.
*Assessment routes, regional funding shares and fees are set regionally in Italy and change regularly: always confirm the current position with the local ASL, the hospital's social worker and the facility itself. This article is general information and is not a substitute for legal or financial advice. Curalune does not allocate beds and cannot guarantee availability.*