The Como patients were treated like children who were more foolish than capricious. And then the silence which almost offends even more than the story itself. With every hour that passes, the story of the Menaggio hospital takes on increasingly unacceptable traits, which a regional councilor without a party or any political sensitivity has decided to close suddenly, with a couple of sentences thrown there without a way or a framework.
“We will close the emergency room and the facility will only accommodate chronic patients”, the summary of what the member of Attilio Fontana’s council said last Friday, with the contemptuous smile of someone who feels so powerful and untouchable as to take away a piece of healthcare to thousands of citizens in an impromptu interview at the beginning of the summer.
Because if the news itself obviously sparked an immediate and overwhelming bipartisan insurrection, it is once again (also) the methods that this territory must not compromise on. And, indeed, on which he must continue every day, every minute, to ask those ‘above’ Bertolaso for clarity, explanations, authentic interpretations, legitimations or denials. To make a long story short, the number one of Palazzo Lombardia, Attilio Fontana, cannot escape from political and administrative responsibilities, faced with such a serious decision thrown at the feet of an entire population – the most fragile one, moreover – as if it were a cigarette cigarette to be put out with the heel of a shoe. We have been looking for the president for 48 hours; we have had no response so far. He does nothing, we want to be sure that someone else will have better luck very soon. What doesn’t change is the underlying concept: it has to, period.
Healthcare in Lombardy according to Fontana: “With autonomy we decide. In the more specialized valleys”
The leadership of a region as important as Lombardy entails enormous honors but at the same time demands that the burdens – or perhaps the messes of his men, if this were the case for Menaggio – be addressed with timeliness, clarity and respect for the people who, among the other, Fontana also voted en masse in the last regional elections. Attention must be paid to the Como area, the Menaggini area, and the entire central lake area. We cannot ignore the need for truth of patients, patients, family members and in any case the residents of an entire section of the Como province suddenly caught by the hair and thrown into uncertainty about the future of their hospital. And you can’t be in two shoes at the same time: either the councilor has said something that doesn’t exist, and then it must be proven wrong and perhaps further; or he has revealed – albeit in inadmissible tones and ways – a very serious truth, and then we must face the criticisms, the controversies and, if anything, justify the reasons in the most convincing way possible.
On such a delicate topic, which touches chords, fears and sensitivities much deeper than the political controversy of the day, the citizen, the taxpayer and the patient of the Lombardy Region have the right to clarity and transparency. They demand – and it is their duty – to know whether the words of Guido Bertolaso, not just any gentleman, will become law or not; if the method chosen by the councilor, i.e. amputating an emergency room with the same lightness with which you book a hairdresser, is the one that the top of the Lombardy Region considers right, adequate and loyal towards thousands of people. Not only is the future of the hospital at stake. The honor of those who gathered votes and sincere trust on Lake Como and now seem to forget about it, even carelessly, is at stake. But a territory like this – already politically loyal perhaps even beyond its real merits – can endure a lot, not everything and not forever.
