“I don’t talk to journalists.” Doctor Claudio Carnicelli does not cut short, more. When he appears, all dressed in jeans, at the door of the clinic on the Monday afternoon shift – the first 3 hours of a total of 9 per week – while dismissing a patient, the joking and affable tone that first transpired from his shouting in the waiting room it vanishes suddenly. He, the only general practitioner in the Upper Town with a clinic in via Borgo Canale, he doesn’t speak, but his patients do. And they do it after having spoken to him (obviously) and having learned from the person concerned that is on the verge of leaving the headquarters of the ancient village for the two outpatient clinics in the lower city, where he already practices. There you invited the patients you registered to go. Hence the discreet alarmism that the announced move generates in its surroundings 1,500 assisted, especially elderly people forced, not without discomfort, to go elsewhere due to a health situation that has been penalizing Città Alta for years.
At the end of 2021, the retirement of Dr. Lorenzo Tonello, followed by that of Dr. Gloria Dolci in April 2022, had created a flaw in the system covered with the temporary hiring of two female doctors at the end of 2022. Now that Carnicelli is once again the only operative left, this new tile is about to fall. When? The doctor doesn’t even answer this question, or rather he tries through very clenched teeth like this: “I can come and go whenever I want”, but now it would only be a matter of a few days.
By the end of May, or perhaps earlier, as he anticipated to some of his clients, complaining to them, also about the amount of fines that would have been given to him and that, a fine today and one tomorrow, would have made a now full camel overflow. It’s useless to ask for clarification on this too: “Whoever needs to know has known everything for years”, she hisses as she closes the door. Who needs to know, i.e. the Asst (from January 1st the responsibility for the management and governance of general practitioners passed from the Ats to the individual Asst), what does he know? «Dr. Carnicelli – Pope John XXIII says from the Asst – is expected to leave shortly, but we are not yet certain about the date. And, in any case, he could still change his mind, if he wanted to.” “If the doctor’s decision were reversible – echoes the deputy mayor Sergio Gandi – we could review the issue of passes”.
Some news would be on the way: «Città Alta falls within the call for so-called “deficient areas”, expiring on May 8th, with the obligation for doctors who opt for the Bergamo area to open two clinics in this area of the city – the Asst finally clarifies -. We also have active discussions with the Municipality to find concessions, including car passes, if a doctor wants to practice in the Upper Town.”
The Municipality of Bergamo says it “learned with surprise” the news. And he specifies: «Given that it is not possible, according to the rules in force, for a parking space to be reserved for him in a public area reserved for exclusive use with name and surname, the doctor, due to his profession in relation to the ASST, can take advantage of special passes that guarantee the right to park both in the spaces reserved for residents and, free of charge, in paid spaces on the street. You can also park in areas not dedicated to parking, as long as they do not obstruct pedestrian or vehicular traffic and as long as they do not cause a dangerous situation. Therefore, the doctor enjoys the widest right to park granted by the Highway Code and by the Municipality of Bergamo”. The Municipality notes that the “doctor does not appear to indicate in the traffic code sanctions the reason for his transfer to the other clinic where the doctor practices his profession. And in fact, from an initial search in the Local Police archives, it appears that the doctor – in the car registered to him and for which he has a specific pass for doctors – has been the recipient of only two sanctions in the last 5 years, falling within the violations mentioned above. For completeness of information, the clinic in which the doctor has practiced in recent years has provided a subsidized monthly fee from the Municipality of €211 per month, in addition to a flat rate of €500 per year for all utilities (heating, water and electricity). Therefore, a possible disincentive role in the matter in question does not appear to be attributable to the Municipality».
The Municipality received requests for information from another doctor interested in taking over from Dr. Carnicelli – who communicated the cancellation to the offices last March 15 -, «is working to issue a public notice, in order to guarantee maximum transparency in the procedure for assigning the clinic in via Borgo Canale».
