The Stanza Rosa is a space set aside within the general emergency departments of hospitals where patients are received and taken into care when a situation of abuse or maltreatment has been detected or is suspected. It is the first point of contact in hospital for the Codice Rosa pathway, the protocol that Tuscany's health system treats as a pillar of its protection of victims of violence, including women, minors and the elderly.
Under the protocol, the first step is the clinical and health care of the victim, with particular attention to protecting the person and to gathering the elements needed to frame the case not only from a health standpoint but also from a social and criminological one, according to the circumstances. The pathway then moves into protection and accompaniment, through a multidisciplinary network that brings in institutions, the judiciary, law enforcement, anti-violence centres and associations as required.
The Codice Rosa began as a pilot project in Grosseto in 2010, devised in the Maremma provincial capital by the medical director Vittoria Doretti, who is now responsible for the programme across the whole of Tuscany. The experience grew out of daily practice, and over time the protocol also generated normative and regulatory acts aimed at optimising the contribution of the third sector and volunteers in accompanying victims along a new pathway.
The model has become a capillary regional network that guarantees not only reserved access but a continuum of care, from the acute phase to territorial takeover within the following 72 hours and then either a return home or, in the most serious cases, referral to a protected facility.
In 2025 alone, 2,749 people were received, among them 511 minors and 2,238 adults, of whom 1,839 were women. The system relies on a multidisciplinary network involving institutions, law enforcement and anti-violence centres, with procedures standardised by the most recent protocol of July 2024 covering timings and the obligations to report and file a complaint.
The figures cited for the period from 2012 to the end of 2025 place the Codice Rosa among the longest-running and most structured regional responses to violence in Italy, with the Stanza Rosa serving as its immediate instrument inside the hospital.