ANT Foundation

Address:via Jacopo di Paolo, 36, 40128 - Bologna
Phone/Fax: 0039 051 7190111 / 0039 051 377586
E-mail:info@ant.it
www: www.ant.it

Contact: Paolo Padoan
e-mail:paolo.padoan@ant.it
Phone:0039 051 7190183


ANT Foundation is one of the largest European Organisation in the field of free oncological home care. ANT also operates in 1) cancer prevention, 2) training, 3) research.

ANT is a Non-Profit Organisation, made up of a broad base of volunteers (approximately 1,600) and a group of professionals who provide free home care service, 24 hours per day.
Every day ANT assists more than 4,000 patients in Italy; during 2013 the number of assisted patients had been approximately 10,000; since beginning (1985), ANT helped about 100,000 patients.

ANT does not assist only people with an advanced stage of the disease, by administering palliative care if needed, but also provides adequate support patients and their family/caregivers in the early stage of the disease.

ANT’s action is founded on solid ethical assumptions, the center of them is the concept of EUBIOSIA, that means “the dignity of life until the last breath” (in ancient Greek).
ANT’s health personnel relational ability with patients and families provides an added value that often the Public Health is not able to guarantee.

Volunteer staff (suitably formed by ANT) is also necessary to provide a global social-sanitary service to patients and their family.

The activated services in different Italian areas include:

1) ANT provides cancer patients with the drugs not reimbursable by public health system;
2) Door to door service: free transport of the patient from home to hospital and back for instrumental tests that cannot be handled at home, plus free transport for day hospital admissions;
3) Bedridden bath and personal care;
4) Cleaning of bed sheets, blankets and clothes including collection and delivery;
5) Delivery health aids service: orthopaedic beds, infusion pumps, wheelchairs etc.;
6) Home Project: Toll Free Number for oncological and psychological questions;
7) Library at home: ANT delivers books, DVDs to the patients.

One of the main characterizations of the “ANT model” is having local health team consisting mainly of doctors with extensive experience in oncology.

The global ANT health staff is composed of: 126 physicians, 86 nurses, 28 psychologists, 10 other health professionals. Quality of the services is constantly monitored by questionnaires for the assisted families and our data are compared with official quality data coming from Italian Health Ministry.

ANT operates in the field of training and psycholgical support as well. We organize continuing medical education seminars (ECM) providing the necessary credits to healthcare professionals in accordance with the Ministry of Health.

The training events are held mainly by following a monthly calendar with the participation of experts in oncology, palliative care and psycho -oncology.

Seminars are structured with different modes of action: roundtables, discussion of clinical cases, lectures, role-playing and experiential groups.
The recipients are primarily operators that make up the ANT home care oncology staff, composed by Doctors, Nurses, Psychologists, Physiotherapists, Pharmacists and social assistants, although the seminars are open and attended by health professionals coming also from external health facilities.
The acquisition of credits depends on the successful completion of a questionnaire for the assessment of learning. The test is considered passed if participant responds correctly to 75 % of the proposed questions and compulsory in order to receive CME credits. ANT provides public training courses for concerned citizens to volunteer.
Meetings are for people who want to know about ANT mission and deepen the types of interventions.