“Fourteen years of commissionership have not been enough to change or improve the health of Calabrian healthcare. Calabria is the only region still in the Recovery Plan that has not achieved any progress and shows no progress in terms of protecting citizens’ health. Also the commissioner Roberto Occhiuto has failed”. This was stated by the president of the Cosenza municipal council, Giuseppe Mazzucathe mayor of Acre, Pino Capalboand the member of the national leadership of the Democratic Party, Carlo Guccione.
“The President of the Region strongly wanted the Government to give him the role of health commissioner. Today he threatens to resign because his “his” allies are acting against him with the aim of taking away further resources. The failure, however, is there for all to see: Calabria – recalls Giuseppe Mazzuca – continues to be in the last places for the essential levels of assistance, records the highest rate of healthcare emigration, the new hospitals still remain on paper while takes to the streets to protest against the decree that reorganizes the Calabrian hospital network. Two years ago the Cosenza city council approved the location of the new hospital in the Vaglio Lise area. What has happened to date? The Region has decided to waste further time with a new feasibility study by inserting a new site – that of Arcavacata – and for the first time it has been decided to leave the indication of a site of its choice in the hands of the company that wins the tender. A rather sui generis act which unjustifiably delays the construction of the new Hub facility. This shows, unfortunately, that Commissioner Occhiuto does not intend to build the hospital, but the objective is to create a Polytechnic elsewhere and to leave the current Annunziata alive”.
The mayor of Acri, Pino Capalbo, recalled the battle that he is carrying out together with his citizens in defense of the “Beato Angelo” hospital. “We went from 32 to 26 beds. A single radiologist – on duty one day a week – is not enough to make the CT and MRI functions work, inaugurated in 2018. Two surgeons will officially retire in July and August, the third in October. This means – underlines Mayor Capalbo – that surgical consultations will not be possible in the emergency room, the multidisciplinary interventions that were planned will only be in “day surgery”. There was no discussion with President Occhiuto. Healthcare has no political color but double standards are being used here: San Giovanni in Fiore goes from 31 to 37 beds and also Cariati, for whose reopening of the facility I can only be happy, increases hospitalizations from 0 to 31 beds. According to Agenas, the Acri hospital is the one that records the highest number of performances among hospitals in disadvantaged areas and is considered among the best for the quality of healthcare services. Why does the ad acta commissioner decide to reduce the number of beds here and increase them elsewhere? Based on what criteria?”.
The problem of healthcare migration
“With Occhiuto management nothing has changed. Passive mobility continues to grow, Calabria records the highest rate of healthcare migration towards other regions – 43 percent – as regards oncology treatments, 12% of citizens give up on treatments. The reorganization of the hospital network – specifies Carlo Guccione – remains written only within the DCA but does not become operational, there is an abysmal difference between what is written or said and what patients see every day, patients are forced to wait long stays in emergency rooms because beds are not activated. We are still waiting for the acute care beds that were foreseen with DCA number 64/2016. The Decrees on hospital reorganization have never actually been applied. In the meantime, we have arrived at the fifth Operational Plan for the continuation of the Recovery Plan and I am sure that, unfortunately, the 2025-2028 Plan will also exist. We are faced with a real failure of the commissioner institution.”
