Associazione Italiana dei Cardiopatici Congeniti Adulti

The Italian GUCH association (Associazione Italiana dei Cardiopatici Congeniti Adulti, AICCA), originates from the will of the patients and the collaboration of doctors, surgeons and psychologists involved in the treatment of these pathologies, with the aim of favouring and promoting the awareness of this problem which involves between 70.000 and 100.000 people in Italy and to contribute to the training of those figures who participate in the handling of these pathologies.

The website dedicated to it represents an essential milestone in its development and we hope it can be a way to aggregate patients who are also geographically distant, giving them the opportunity to contact each other, exchange opinions and experiences and also talk about their issues; besides it will be possible to contact specialists both in the sanitary, psychological and also legal fields. The quality of the specialist information will be guaranteed by a Technical-Scientific committee made up of acknowledged experts in this sector.

The association will also have the following medium term objectives:

1. To favour the implementation of initiatives in order to gain the attention of various problems which could be present which are not only of a medical nature (for example problems related to work, sports, insurance, etc.), in order to find jointly held solutions on a national level;
2. To relate to European organisations and bodies in order to enter in international networks;
3. To favour the creation of an e-learning system which favours the training of the operators.

With their input, the patients will be able to address the training in this field indicating which aspects and problematic issues which are not only medical, are not yet adequately dealt with.

In this way the winning concept of a modern type of medicine in which there is an attention to the person, that is “Healing Together”, paying attention to the bio-psycho-social aspects of the person. This website is not a simple medical website, but the website of those people who to a various extent, are involved with congenital heart disease.

In this meeting-place one’s experiences could be of help for everyone!

This website wants to be a meeting-place in which a solution to a problem which might appear to be trivial can be proposed!

All of us, together, would like to render a difficult experience which marks the lives of many children and their families, into a positive resource, helping others and each other to overcome problems during adolescence in order to reach adulthood with the awareness of one’s limits but also of one’s own incredible and peculiar resources.

By uniting the effort of everyone we will be able to create a force which will be of support to many in the future.

We would like to become a reference point, not only for who has had problems but also and especially for those who unfortunately will have similar problems, bestowing on them the awareness that a serene life rich with satisfaction is possible!

The association has come to be, now all of us, together must help it grow!

“The glory of the world is transitory and it is not what gives us the right dimension in our lives, but the choice we make to follow our own personal legend. Believing in our utopias and fighting for our dreams.”

Paulo Coelho