Cortina hospital prepares for the Olympics: from diagnostics to first aid for safer competitions

The Cortina hospital puts itself at the service of the Olympic and Paralympic Games where almost 4 thousand athletes plus all the staff and delegations are expected. Fifty days before the start of the event on which the eyes of the world will be focused, Gvm Care & Research - a group that operates in healthcare, research, biomedical industry, spa wellness and business services - tells how strategic healthcare will be made available to the Cortina area and for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics through the Cortina hospital complex that today consists of the Codivilla and Putti pavilions, a multi-specialist facility accredited with the National Health Service and managed from 2019 by the group founded in 1973 by Ettore Sansavini

In particular, the Codivilla pavilion is at the centre of a major redevelopment and expansion project by the group, which aims to make it a modern, technological hospital also oriented towards prevention and longevity paths. During the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, the Codivilla will be dedicated to the Olympic family and will be managed by Ulss 1 Dolomiti, catering exclusively for athletes, staff and delegations. At the end of the Games, it will return under the management of Gvm Care & Research and will be available to the local area, residents and tourists. The Putti Pavilion, on the other hand, fully operational, will house the First Aid Point, diagnostic imaging, the Orthopaedics and Traumatology area, motor rehabilitation and, from 2025, a new accredited operating theatre dedicated to both emergencies and scheduled operations (prostheses, arthroscopies, Fast Track protocols). The strategies in view of the Olympics were described during the event 'Health at High Altitude. Il modello ospedale Cortina verso le Olimpiadi 2026", which was held at the Hotel de la Poste in Cortina: Gvm shared with institutions, professionals and the local community the strategic role of healthcare in the mountains for the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The meeting was attended by representatives of national and local institutions, representatives of the sporting world and health professionals present, including Ettore Sansavini himself, Gianluca Lorenzi, mayor of Cortina, Stefano Longo, president of the Cortina Foundation, and Flavio Menardi, a Fisip athlete belonging to the para-bob team.

"Our model," said President Sansavini, "encompasses the more than 50 years of experience that allow us to provide services and specialist care of excellence in the high mountains, in Cortina. With cutting-edge technologies and services, the Cortina hospital is one of the poles of excellence not only in Italy, but also internationally, and it is well-prepared to guarantee efficiency and timeliness during a major sporting event such as the next Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The facility is at the service of the territory, tourists and athletes all year round and is designed to provide strategic and high-level healthcare during the Olympic Games and beyond'. "I would like to thank Ettore Sansavini for his great commitment in wanting to redevelop Cortina's historic hospital, the Codivilla, providing health care during the Olympics and Paralympics," Giovanni Malagò, president of the Milan Cortina 2026 Foundation, said in a video message. "All this," he added, "is very important, because it is an asset that we have included in what are the new services for the great community of the Olympics: not only the technicians and athletes, but also the delegations, fans, stakeholders, sponsors, federations, managers, the media, a multitude of people who feel even happier to participate knowing that there is also attention to this fundamental need. For the mayor of Cortina, 'health care is a point of reference for the community of Cortina, but also for the entire Cadore region, both during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and especially in the period afterwards,' Lorenzi pointed out. In recent years, "many small provincial hospitals have been closed and the risk that this would also happen to Codivilla was strong," pointed out Longo, president of the Cortina Foundation. "Instead, this public-private partnership has reversed the course and represents, in my opinion, a virtuous strategy for the future as well.