“A new emergency room in Turin (private but with an agreement with the public, ed.) and a new socio-health plan, both to be approved by the end of 2024. And then: a new system to manage the single booking center with care of the frail and chronically ill. Visits and exams 7 days a week and, if necessary, also in the evening. General directors extended until the end of the year, so as to allow the new council that wins the elections to decide who will lead the Piedmontese Local Health Authorities and Aso and not ours, which is expiring. And the Alessandria and Regina Margherita children’s hospitals in Turin are recognized by IRCCS, scientific hospitalization and treatment institutions.”
This is the recipe that the outgoing regional governor Alberto Cirio (Forza Italia) presented on Monday as an integral part of his election programme. A theme «so important that it deserves a dedicated launch conference» she specified. Supported by the centre-right coalition (Forza Italia, Lega and Fratelli d’Italia), Cirio can also count on the support of the list of the same name whose promoting committee contributed to the drafting of the electoral promises on healthcare. Among them Pietro Presti, former strategic consultant of the Region and a series of doctors: Valter Galante, former regional manager; Alessandro Stecco, former president of the health commission of the regional council; the Honorable Rossana Boldi, head of the league’s health department for Piedmont; Franca Fagioli, director of pediatric oncology and director of the pediatric oncology and hematology network; Giuseppe Palena, family pediatrician and Fimp regional secretary; Roberto Venesia, general practitioner and regional secretary of Fimmg; Paola Varese, oncologist, director of oncology medicine in Ovada and candidate for the regional elections with the centre-right.
«Ours is a program in continuity with the last 5 years and which looks to the future» added Cirio insisting on the fact that «with us Piedmontese healthcare has returned to having the “plus” sign». The centre-right’s health program is certainly ambitious, especially because it plans – through a public tender – to open a new emergency room in six months; and to convince doctors to visit patients even on Saturdays, Sundays and in the evening, even more so considering how, at least for now, the national government talks about the rationalization of resources rather than investments in healthcare. Meanwhile, the regional secretary of the Democratic Party Domenico Rossi comments on the centre-right’s health programme, defining it as “the usual promises after 5 years of failures”.
Finally, during the press conference, the most attentive observers were able to notice how they sat at the speakers’ table and in the audience at least three eligible health councilors; the already well-known welfare councilor (Fratelli d’Italia) Maurizio Marrone; Valter Galante, currently commissioner of the ASL of Alessandria and former regional councilor for health from 2003 to 2005; and Franca Fagioli who, according to insistent rumors within the party, many leading exponents of Forza Italia (including Cirio) would like to lead the most powerful department in Piazza Piemonte.
