POTENZA – There is a hole of 85 million euros in Basilicata’s healthcare accounts. Therefore, for the leader of the Basilicata common house Angelo Chiorazzo, “the Region is one step away from being placed under commissionership”. While for the outgoing governor Vito Bardi, running for a second presidential term, the financial coverage has already been prepared, and Chiorazzo should rather explain his own entrepreneurial interests in the sector. Thus, the most heated clash since the start of the campaign for the vote on Sunday and Monday took place yesterday. Less than 72 hours after the electoral silence struck.
The attack on the outgoing centre-right administration came following the last session of the monitoring table on essential levels of assistance between the Ministry of Health and the Region. A session that was held on Monday and had gone essentially unnoticed. While for Chiorazzo he would have proclaimed the absence of coverage for the deficit of 85 million euros in the accounts of the regional health system. “If it is true, and unfortunately it is true, we are at the first step of a process that will continue with a formal warning and which will consequently lead to the Lucanian health system being placed under commissionership.” This is the alarm sounded by Chiorazzo, who underlined that «being placed under commissionership is not just a question of dignity: it means that someone will come, indicated by the national government, to cut hospitals and services with an accounting logic to make ends meet and that does not take into account the needs and specificities of the territories”. Hence yet another appeal to vote for Bacc and its gubernatorial candidate Piero Marrese, who “would undertake as early as next week to identify the coverage necessary to avoid the definitive collapse of the healthcare system in our region”.
Bardi’s response was almost immediate, dismissing Chiorazzo’s alarm as “the hidden fantasy of the Lucanian left”, “a broken record” and “fake news”. The outgoing governor recalled that the same alarm had already been raised last year, which later proved to be unfounded. Then he explained that the regional council has already adopted a measure “to deal with the deficit, exactly as we did last year”. Finally he launched a thrust on the “great interest” in Lucanian healthcare of Chiorazzo, founder of the Auxilium coop, which for years has managed the integrated home care service on behalf of the regional healthcare service. Bardi also referred to the news on the latest dispute that opened between Auxilium itself and the Region. «There are those who have profited and want to continue to profit more and more from Lucanian healthcare – continued the outgoing governor – and those who, like us, have a single interest: Basilicata. We want healthcare that works and provides answers to citizens. We have no other interests and we have no conflicts of interest, unlike others, as the M5s leader himself, Giuseppe Conte, admitted a few weeks ago, with great intellectual honesty.”
The clash between the re-candidate for governor of the centre-right and the quasi-candidate of the Democratic Party and ally continued even after this initial exchange of words. In fact, Chiorazzo’s counter-reply arrived shortly after, accusing Bardi of telling “falsehoods”, releasing the council resolution in which only 35 of the 85 million deficit would be covered, and challenging the its contender to publish the minutes of Monday’s meeting of the monitoring table on essential levels of assistance. “Bardi tries to throw it into controversy and distract from the facts which, however, are stubborn.” These are the words of the representative of Basilicata’s common home, for which the government would have recognized some aspects of illegitimacy also for the solution proposed by the regional council to partially cover the hole in the Lucanian healthcare accounts. Government, which would be “intending to send an ad acta commissioner to Basilicata”. “These funds must be found by April 30th to avoid being placed under commissionership.” Chiorazzo concluded.
In the evening, a counter-counter-reply was also released in defense of the outgoing administration in the name of “Orgoglio Lucano”, which is the name of the list of aspiring regional councilors directly representing the governor. «President Bardi promptly responded to Chiorazzo’s fake news, as he already did a year ago. And we saw how it ended a year ago.” We read in the note released by the Bardians. «Now Chiorazzo appoints himself as government spokesperson, in short he is not credible. We note instead that Chiorazzo did not respond to Bardi on the conflicts of interest he has on Lucanian healthcare”. «Chiorazzo – concludes Orgoglio Lucano – must give up his millionaire contracts with the Lucanian healthcare system, if he wants to be credible when he talks about the Lucanian healthcare system».
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