There are over 90 thousand, 38 thousand online and the rest on paper, the signatures of the petition on health in Lombardy which the La Lombardia SiCura Committee submitted yesterday morning to the protocol of the Lombardy Region. The initiative, launched on 1 March and concluded on 10 June, saw a broad mobilization in all the territories of Lombardy of the participating organizations and associations, to which was added the initiative of various municipal councils which approved orders of the day with the contents of the petition. Among these, the Municipality of Milan which joined yesterday, the Municipality of Mantua and numerous local authorities.
The five points of the petition
There are five key points of the petition: a single booking centre, which must have the agendas of all contracted structures, public and private; the reduction of waiting lists, through periodic checks by the Region and the ATS; the stop to the use of coin-operated doctors and, therefore, the stabilization and hiring of healthcare personnel; improvements and coverage of health costs by the regional health service of the Nursing Homes and the Elderly and strengthening of local services, indispensable references for people’s health.
A gigantic popular mobilization
“The great consensus received by the petition is the clear confirmation of the heavy state of discomfort in the population and of the urgency of structural actions to modify the management of healthcare in Lombardy, for a full restoration of the public healthcare service in all its aspects, starting from effective cutting of waiting lists”, Marco Caldiroli, Medicina Democratica, said in a press conference Vittorio Agnoletto, Health Observatory, Massimo Cortesi, Arci Lombardia, Monica Vangi secr. CGIL Lombardia, Federica Trapletti SPI CGIL Lombardia and Andrea Villa, ACLI Milan, representing the founding committee (Democratic Medicine, Health Observatory, Arci Lombardia, CGIL, SPI and FP Lombardia and ACLI Lombardia).
“Useless initiatives from the Lombardy Region”
“To restore dignity and efficiency to the public health service in the Region – they added – the recent regional initiatives, taken during the collection of signatures, are certainly not enough, such as the extension of the opening of public facilities exclusively with extraordinary hours of social and health workers , or the extension of a role, which for us is inappropriate, of pharmacies, as well as the difficulties of having the single CUP “accepted” which they belatedly declare they want to introduce. Initiatives that go in the same direction as government ones, which do not address the root causes of the healthcare disaster in Italy.”
Next initiatives
The Committee announced the next initiatives and appointments: a public demonstration towards mid-September and the presentation of the petition to the III Regional Health Commission, which is also engaged in this period in the discussion on the 2024-2027 Social and Health Plan. Dozens of associations, committees and political groups throughout the region have joined “La Lombardia SiCura”, and the activation of local entities has been particularly numerous and widespread, many of which are self-organised. A “training” for the future collection of signatures for the referendum on Regional Law 33/2009 on Healthcare, for which the appeal process continues against the decision of the majority of the Regional Council to prevent it.
