Visits hospitals in Italy to avoid paying for tests, reported

CATANIA, 15 APR – Convinced that he had a serious illness, in order to constantly repeat tests and free medical visits, he pretended to be ill, being admitted to various Italian hospitals, providing false personal details. This is the accusation made against a 55-year-old hypochondriac, originally from Veneto, who was reported for impersonation by policemen from the Borgo Ognina police station in Catania. The investigations were started after his last hospitalization, at the Caltagirone hospital, where he managed, by pretending to suffer from non-existent symptoms, to be admitted to the Neurology department of the ‘Gravina’, providing a false identity. But he was recognized by medical staff from the Cannizzaro hospital in Catania, which also works in Caltagirone, to whose emergency room he was presented in October 2023, managing to be admitted to Neurology there too. Once the 55-year-old from Veneto was discovered, he fled without explaining the reasons for his actions. Agents from the Borgo Ognina police station in Catania managed to identify him and discover that the man had already been reported for having provided false personal details to benefit from free healthcare services in the hospitals of Grosseto, Chieti, Venice, Cremona and Parma. According to the reconstruction of the Catania Police Headquarters, the continuous hospitalizations under a false name were “determined by the circumstance that the man, harboring excessive concern about his health, in order to carry out more clinical tests at no cost and at the same time obtain more medical advice, he went monthly to the hospitals of the most disparate municipalities in Italy, each time registering under a false name”. The crime of impersonation carries a penalty of one year in prison if convicted. (HANDLE).