Friday 27 March 2020 Hospitals and healthcare facilities
Rekeep is fully operational providing essential public utility services
The Group is active in about 350 health trusts and several hundred hospitals both in Italy and abroad
Rekeep S.p.A., in compliance with the rules laid down in the Italian President of the Council of Ministers Decree containing “Additional provisions on the implementation of Decree Law 6 of 23 February 2020 on urgent measures to contain and manage the epidemiological emergency caused by COVID-19, applicable throughout the entire national territory”, published in the Italian Republic Official Gazette on 22 March 2020, announces that the Group’s operations continue as normal in that they are of public interest.
In fact about 60% of the Group’s activities, both in Italy and abroad, are carried out in the healthcare area in providing services essential for the functioning of hospitals and in support of medical care. Rekeep at present is active in about 350 health trusts and several hundred hospitals throughout the country: with its thousands of workers, it provides services for property operation and maintenance, sanitisation and disinfection, plant operation and maintenance and the transport of patients; through its subsidiary Servizi Ospedalieri S.p.A., a leading company in specialist services in the rental, industrial laundering and sterilisation segment in the healthcare sector, it also delivers rental, industrial laundering and sterilisation services for fabrics, uniforms and surgical instruments.
Rekeep also operates in various other sectors that provide essential services, such as telecommunications, large-scale retail trade, banking and transport.
Of course Rekeep confirms that it has put all the most stringent protocols in place to preserve the health, security and safety of its employees, independent professionals and workers, suppliers and customers, who all constitute an absolute priority for our Company.
With this in mind, it was decided immediately to allow head office services personnel and staff to work remotely, making suitable arrangements for smart working; at the same time Rekeep respects the vital principle of safeguarding the health, security and safety of all those who must perforce continue rendering services to customers, ensuring the continuity of the Company’s operations and satisfying contractual obligations, in compliance with the provisions of Ministry Directives and the WHO.
The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rekeep, Giuliano Di Bernardo, and the Chairman of Parent Company Manutencoop Società Cooperativa, Claudio Levorato, thank all the Group’s employees and independent professionals and workers for the immense commitment, the assiduity and sense of responsibility they are putting into their work, particularly at this time, of providing essential services to the entire community. The people of the Rekeep Group are working shoulder to shoulder with Italian Health Service personnel in identifying needs and providing the proper mix of technologies and services needed to tackle these days of emergency.
"These difficult days, which we would never have imagined we would have to experience, are putting a great strain on each of us, on our families and on our way of working,” commented Claudio Levorato, Chairman of Manutencoop Società Cooperativa, the holding company controlling Rekeep S.p.A.. “In these days the pressure on our Group is still greater: at the side of medical and healthcare personnel, we are called upon to carry out essential services in hospitals, from sanitisation to fitting out new areas for intensive care, in order to stand together against this emergency all over Italy. Priceless work accompanied by the efforts made by many other colleagues who assist supermarkets, banks, telecommunications companies, public transport and the many other activities that have to stay open because they are essential. It is for this reason that in these dramatic moments, above all for those continuing to work in the front line, I want to say and say again that I am proud of our Group, proud of how everyone is giving of their best with a spirit of service that often even goes beyond their day-to-day duties. It’s a part of our Group’s trade to solve problems, tackle the unexpected and come up with solutions: I’m sure that we will find a way to emerge from this all together this time too.”
Rekeep also provides cleaning services in intensive care departments and in various hospitals converted to receive coronavirus – COVID-19 – patients, carrying out routine and extraordinary operations in shifts that are arranged at present on a 24/7 basis. Major Italian hospitals are among the facilities in which the Group operates; the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome, the Careggi University Hospital in Florence, the Bellaria Hospital in Bologna, the Polyclinic in Modena, the Sant’Anna Hospital in Como, the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa, the Santissimi Antonio and Biagio and Cesare Arrigo National Hospital Trust in Alessandria and numerous hospitals in North-Eastern Italy including the Borgo Roma e Borgo Trento Hospital in Verona, the St Bortolo Hospital in Vicenza, the Ca’ Foncello Hospital in Treviso and the St Chiara Hospital in Trento in addition to several other hospital facilities in Rome, Naples, Catania and Palermo.
As regards plant maintenance and operation, in addition to its routine activities, Rekeep is at present engaged in various projects for the expansion of intensive care departments or setting up new triage areas in A&E departments. At the Sant’Orsola Malpighi Polyclinic in Bologna, the Group helped in setting up a new ward for coronavirus patients in only six days. Similar work was done, again in Bologna, at the Ospedale Maggiore and the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute. In Rome Rekeep took part in setting up the Columbus Covid 2 Hospital constructed by the Gemelli Polyclinic and completed works on the expansion of intensive care departments at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital. In Lombardy the Group carried out similar works at the Sant’Anna Hospital in Como, the West Milan District Health Authority in Legnano and in the Garda Health Trust hospitals. Yet other works were completed in hospitals in Livorno, Palermo and Frosinone.
