Emergencies

• 112 is the single European emergency number — police, fire, ambulance — and operators can handle English. It works from any phone, free.
• The local first-aid volunteers (Croce Bianca di Orentano) are a fixture of village life; for anything urgent, still call 112, which dispatches them.
• The nearest hospital with a full emergency department (pronto soccorso) is San Giuseppe Hospital in Empoli; Pontedera and Lucca also have hospitals — 112 decides for you in a real emergency.

The village's own ambulance service

Orentano is small, but it runs its own pubblica assistenza: the Croce Bianca di Orentano, born in 1985 as a section of the Santa Croce sull'Arno association and autonomous since 1990. Around 100 volunteers keep a fleet of ten vehicles moving — ambulances, disabled-transport vans, civil-protection and forest-firefighting units — from the headquarters at Via della Repubblica 4 (opened in 2011).

For emergencies always call 112. For everything else — non-urgent health transport, the ambulatori (visiting doctors' clinic hours hosted at their premises), first-aid courses — call the switchboard on 0583 23555 or check crocebiancaorentano.it.

Pharmacy

Orentano has a pharmacy in the village centre — for anything from paracetamol to advice, the farmacia is the first stop in Italy, and pharmacists are used to helping visitors. Outside opening hours, every pharmacy posts the rota of the nearest farmacia di turno (on-duty pharmacy) on its door.

Seeing a doctor

• EU visitors: your EHIC/GHIC card covers urgent public healthcare.
• Non-EU visitors: check your travel insurance; for non-urgent issues, ask at the pharmacy — they will point you to the local guardia medica (out-of-hours doctor) or a private clinic nearby.

Good to know

Tap water is safe to drink. Summer here is genuinely hot — carry water, and treat the 2–5 pm lull like the locals do: in the shade.