The situation for public health in the entire Polesine area is serious. “There are conditions under which the workers don’t even have soap or gloves to work properly” complains Riccardo Mantovan, secretary of the FP Cgil Rovigo, during this morning’s press conference at the CGIL headquarters. With him were other members of the CGIL secretariat, Roberta Denanni and Pasquale Brenga, as well as category representatives.
“The first serious problem – said Mantovan – concerns the hiring freeze that has lasted for six months. There is a serious shortage of staff and the working staff are overloaded to the point that they cannot ask for leave or holidays. We are talking not only about fewer doctors, but also about fewer obstetricians, fewer midwives, less administrative staff which would serve the entire territory. Our three hospitals are in a very serious condition. Public health is disappearing.”
And again: “Not to mention the fact that more and more people, especially at the nursing level, they resign to go into private practice. You work in a terrible climate. The general management tells us that the hiring freeze comes from exceeding the cost of the spending ceiling. Healthcare cannot work by reducing costs, but by investing in staff who are the fundamental resource. Consider that young people cannot even choose to study, especially if they are nurses, they are not even granted two weeks of unpaid leave. We also impose absolute immobility starting from the management of health professions, a complex operational unit, with which we have a director at the head of the structure who has three hospitals under him and an entire territory to manage”.
The problem relating to the inclusion of a community hospital is no less important: “In our company we have an old hospital, there are no longer usable spaces and we are going to position ourselves inside a community hospital which will occupy one floor and is a structure that will have to be placed on the territory. There will be negative repercussions because the rehabilitation space will then be significantly reduced, this means an increase in waiting lists for rehabilitation and physiotherapy activities”.
Mantovan then added: “We have an Oss ranking of 260 suitable candidates which expires in July from which only around fifty people have been hired. 200 people are therefore without work when there is an immense need. And again, there is a ranking of nurses for 10 positions and to date these 10 put up for tender have not yet been included. It is the largest public company in our territory, but in practice I consider it the worst public administration not in Veneto, but at a national level”.
Finally, Roberta Denanni recalled that today, 30 April, as trade unions there will be an intervention in Venice because the entire regional territory is suffering from these problems. “We are worried – added Alessandro Cattin – also for community hospitals. Who will work there? Will this be another way to put public health in difficulty?”.
