With hindsight it seems clear why a year ago, when he became president of the Lazio Region, Francesco Rocca decided to keep the Health delegation to himself. A key department with one objective: to reduce waiting lists in healthcare facilities in Lazio. Today, fifteen months after his elections, encouraging signs are arriving. At least according to the numbers provided yesterday by Rocca himself, first to the representatives of the healthcare unions and then to the press, when he announced a maxi recruitment plan which envisages 9,700 hires to strengthen public healthcare with an investment of 466 million euros in the next two-year period.
«Every day I receive cries of pain from those who struggle to have access to healthcare – explains Rocca himself -. I held the mandate for healthcare to provide answers to these people. We have made clear choices, investing 1.2 billion on safety: on fire prevention and anti-seismic. We have purchased beds to relieve emergency rooms and reduce waiting times. We have unblocked thousands of hires to invest in staff and public healthcare and invested millions in new technologies. We asked accredited private individuals for all the agendas to ensure that the Lazio Region resumes clinical governance, manages waiting lists and eliminates them. We are talking about over 4 million services paid for by citizens and which from today are managed by the Region.”
A real breath of fresh air that is unprecedented: in fact, adding up the hirings already granted in 2023 (4,054 units, including 1,605 stabilisations, for 195.5 million euros), we arrive at 13 thousand 753 healthcare workers (among new hiring and stabilization) for a total investment of 661 million and 500 thousand euros.
The new staff will also serve to make the interventions implemented with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan fully operational. Concerning: 59 territorial operations centers, 35 community hospitals, 131 community homes and 298 large equipment.
The regional health service will go from 53 thousand and 583 employees in 2023 to 62 thousand and 662 professionals in 2025, planning to welcome the millions of faithful in view of the 2025 Jubilee. A dramatic increase for healthcare in Lazio: plus 17 percent, which reduces precarious work and embraces the new generations in the world of work.
Meeting the representatives of the unions, the governor of Lazio then announced that competitions for staff recruitment will be announced in the coming weeks. No to maxi-competitions, however. The selections will be targeted and managed directly by the individual healthcare companies.
«I think a 17% increase in the healthcare workforce distributed across all the companies in the Region is a good sign – comments President Rocca, who yesterday also inaugurated a new Stroke-unit equipped with the most up-to-date diagnostic tools at San Camillo -. The permanent hiring will allow us to eliminate outsourcing and is destined to give an injection of energy to the important regional health service.”
«Numbers that will finally lead to a concrete turning point in healthcare – comments Orlando Angelo Tripodi (FI), vice-president of the Pisana Health Commission -.
The citizens of Lazio have paid for years of healthcare management that was, to say the least, wicked, but after many sacrifices we can say that healthcare in Lazio is growing.”
