The mere act of coming into the world, a birth at the Rovereto hospital, costs the Trentino health service 4,834 euros. The same happy event, on the other side of the province, in Cavalese, costs over four times as much: 20,298 euros. The Santa Chiara in Trento is little different from the Santa Maria del Carmine hospital: 5,200 euros, while in Cles, at the Noce valley hospital, it comes close to the figure of the Fiammazzo hospital: 17,621 euros. The evaluation of the Court of Auditors, control section, of the health company’s report is destined to reopen the debate on the “downstream” birth centers on which, in recent years, a clear choice has been made: to keep them open, despite the progressive decline in birth rate. The data refers to 2022, the year of the budget in question: 132 children were born in Cavalese, in Cles, 242. In both cases we are below, but this is known, the parameter of 500 births per year set by State – Regions agreement. But that’s not all: “almost half of the women giving birth – notes the Court of Auditors – resident in the municipalities of Val di Fiemme and Fassa and Val di Non and Sole, in 2022, turned to structures other than the local one, to choice or for clinical indication”. The Court also suggests a cure: «A reorganization of the sector – we read in the note – would also lead to a more equitable distribution of resources between the different structures, since the evident underutilization of local staff could be converted to support departments with high overcapacity» . It is not the only point in which the accounting magistrates “prod” the health company (and the Province, which makes the political choices). There is also the question of intramoenia treatments, those carried out by hospital staff, in a private manner, outside of service hours. The Court recommends the application of a 5% contribution, already provided for by the law: money to be reinvested to reduce waiting lists. «A request that the company also made – explains the general director, Antonio Ferro – considering that the rates on these services are among the lowest in Italy. If a right increase is considered, also foresee the application of this withholding tax. It must be said, however, that this type of activity has already contributed in itself to reducing the lists”. As for birth centers, Ferro clarifies: «Our task is to ensure the safety of mothers. For the rest, it is a decision that falls to provincial politics and the mayors of the area.” On the choice of many mothers from the Cles (Val di Sole and Val di Non) and Cavalese (Fiemme and Fassa valleys) basins to still go and give birth in Trento, DG Ferro specifies that «there is not only the issue of decline in the birth rate”, but also that of “the increase in the average age at the time of the first birth”. Women are giving birth later and later and “this – concludes Ferro – causes pregnancies at risk to increase”. Pregnancies that are taken care of, under the advice of doctors, by the more structured centers such as, in Trentino, Trento and Rovereto.
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