GALLARATE – In the slow and apparently inexorable downsizing of the Sant’Antonio Abate of Gallarate the voice of Angelo Benevento, head of surgery who announces his retirement from July 1st. An exit from the scene destined, like many others of Asst Valle Olona professionals, to leave its mark. Yes, because Benevento intervenes with a large quotation mark on Varese Newsin which he prefigures a healthcare scenario close to crash. For its department and for the hospitals that are part of the territorial social health company of Busto Arsizio, to which the hospital in via Pastori refers.
“The situation of surgeons is not optimal: in Busto five are missing, in Saronno seven” warns the director of the surgical department after describing the management difficulties in Gallarate due to the lack of staff. Difficulties destined to worsen from next month when, together with him, other doctors could soon leave. Furthermore, the competitions announced by the company management would not have solved the problem at the moment. And he, as he reveals, has requested to remain in service until he is seventy.”but evidently I am not included in the programs of this Asst” he says without hiding his disappointment.
Professor Benevento then underlines how surgeons, as well as internal medicine specialists and neurologists are also called upon to cover emergency room shifts: around twenty nights a month. “It is a situation that penalizes the department’s activity: PS services are paid extra, but are performed outside of working hours. If someone spends twelve hours in the emergency room they cannot operate the next morning” warns Benevento. Who then focuses on the escape of the doctors (“I am the fifth director of a complex structure to leave Gallarate in recent months”)focusing his ruthless analysis above all on Cardiology and Radiology. Without forgetting the serious shortage of anesthetists. A flaw that would have contributed to bringing down, after Covid, the turnover of surgery from fifty million euros to twenty/thirty per year. From twenty to fourteen active beds “often also occupied by patients from other departments”.
How to get out of the very heavy general impasse? The solution, according to the head doctor, is the single hospital. Below: “Today the Sant’Antonio Abate, like the Busto hospital, is outdated, old in concept and hotel services. A unique, modern center equipped with the best technologies is welcome. Although, perhaps, the project could have been continued without penalizing the existing activity”. This is in fact the crux of the matter: guaranteeing healthcare services while awaiting the future hospital with maximum functionality and efficiency. But the Valle Olona Asst is not attractive at the moment. Angelo Benevento claims to be leaving leaving a “department that is a jewel, renovated before Covid”. A jewel that risks imploding because there is no one left to take care of it.
Somma hospital, still inconveniences: emergency room and radiology at reduced hours
