The works within the OGR complex - formerly Officine Grandi Riparazioni - in Turin were completed for the construction of the health area for patients with mild and medium-sized Coronavirus. Present at the opening of the facility, Saturday 18 April, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Air Squad General Alberto Rosso.
The site preparation works, started following the signing of an agreement on 4 April between the Piedmont region, the prefecture, the municipality of Turin and the OGR - Crt consortium company and the CRT Foundation, involved an area equal to approximately 8.900 sqm for a first module with 92 seats divided into 4 stabilization posts in intensive emergency, 32 semi-intensive care posts and 56 ordinary hospitalization posts.
"Pride and satisfaction are the two words that come to my mind right now". General Rosso wished to express his deep gratitude for all those who contributed to the creation of the health area. "Pride and satisfaction not only for the Air Force personnel who have made their skills, experience and expertise available to the community, but pride and satisfaction above all because we have shown what institutions, individuals, civil protection and all those who have contributed to this initiative they manage, together, to do. Pride and satisfaction for the team spirit, for the harmony that was in working together in a very short time, the passion and generosity that everyone, each at their own level, have put to solve the problems, passion and generosity that make us optimistic for the future ".
The support of the Air Force is part of the activities strongly desired by the Minister of Defense Lorenzo Guerini to face the emergency in progress. In particular, an infrastructural task force of the Air Force, made up of military technical personnel from teams engaged in OFCN (Operations Outside the National Borders) of the Field Engineering Groups of the three AM Engineering Departments, was involved in the construction of the electrical and lighting in the pavilions of the center.
The Air Force team, made up of 16 specialists experienced in the construction of airport electrical systems, worked in close coordination with the Crisis Unit of the Civil Protection of the Piedmont Region to be able to activate the health structure as soon as possible, thus relieving the pressure on the hospital centers most affected by the emergency. All the works were also carried out so that they can guarantee, even in the absence of supply from the local network, the absolute continuity of all the systems and the uninterrupted use of electromedical systems both at the service of intensive care rooms and semi-intensive therapy. and ordinary hospitalization.
The Air Force Engineering Departments are operational units equipped with all the professionalism and means necessary to design and build wide-ranging infrastructures, with particular specialization in the airport infrastructure sector, ensuring the Armed Force an autonomous and timely intervention capacity in civil and plant engineering sector. According to the tasks assigned to the Defense, these units are used, in particular, for the infrastructural logistic support in operations outside the national borders and for the assistance to the emergency response forces of the Civil Protection in cases of disasters and, as in this case, national emergency.
Among the main activities carried out in the last decade in support of Civil Protection, we note the interventions in favor of the populations affected by the earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009 and in Central Italy in 2016, the support to ENEA since 2015 in the realization of a semi-prepared runway in Antarctica, the numerous operations carried out for the G7 in Taormina in 2017.
