The Presidency of the Council of Ministers accepted the request, presented by the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci, for Enrico Coscioni to be suspended from office, the president of Agenasthe national agency for regional health services, a technical-scientific body of the Health Service which carries out research and support activities for the Minister of Health, the Regions and the Provinces.
The announcement comes from the parliamentarians of Fratelli d’Italia, senator Antonio Iannone and deputy Imma Vietri, who, in recent weeks, had presented a parliamentary question to the minister, to ask if there were the conditions to suspend and or remove from the role held at Agenas by Coscioni, head physician of the San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona hospital in Salerno and director of the Cardiac Surgery Department of the University Hospital, to which the measure was applied, on the orders of the Salerno Prosecutor’s Office precautionary interdictory ban on practicing the medical profession for one year, following the death of a patient who allegedly had gauze left inside his body during an operation, a patient who later died.
Schillaci has now sent the request for suspension to the Permanent State-Regions Conference and the issue will be on the agenda on May 2nd. The favorable opinion – a note explains – also came from the State Attorney General’s Office, for which “the institutional tasks of the Agency, the organic and functional position of its president and the specific acts contested against doctor Coscioni could highlight an inopportuneness of the continuation of the assignment”. “The suspension is a necessary act as – conclude Iannone and Vietri – there can be no shadows or suspicions about anyone who holds a prestigious position at the top of a major public body”. “Let it be clear that for me the principle of the presumption of innocence always applies – adds Aurelio Tommasetti, regional councilor of the League for Campania. – But given the seriousness of the accusations, common sense would have suggested the Salerno professional step back and, failing that , it would have been necessary to stop the assignment. What is the investigation on which justice will take its course, the position held by Coscioni is different, both in the context of the Ruggi hospital and that of the University of Salerno where had recently received the position of contract professor. Suspension is therefore a necessary action, we await the judges on further developments”.
For the vice president of Noi Moderati in the Chamber of Deputies, the Honorable Pino Bicchielli, the “allegations were too serious to allow De Luca’s loyalist to remain at the head of such an important body; our applause to Minister Schillaci and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for having signed the provision – added the Honorable Bicchielli – We await the review, certain that we have once again undertaken the path of good governance, to protect public health and the right to health of each citizen”. “Stop the mud machine” asks instead Mario Polichetti, trade unionist of the provincial Uil Fpl and head of the Risk Pregnancy Department at the San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona in Salerno. “As a colleague and professional in the health field, I follow the developments of this matter with interest and concern. It is important to underline that Coscioni has dedicated his career to the care of patients and to the improvement of the national health system through his role as president of Agenas – said Polichetti -. However, I understand the importance of a thorough and impartial investigation”.
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