Of course, if Matera, as it is in its history and for its daily relations with Puglia, was also part of it on an administrative level, we would not be in paradoxical and penalizing situations, such as the stop to health services announced from 1 July by the hospital management” Miulli ” of Acquaviva delle Fonti (Bari), due to the exceeding of the spending ceiling for the citizens of the nearby regions. And the Bari healthcare facility is the natural point of reference, just 40 kilometers away, especially for users from Matera who have seen the “Madonna delle Grazie” weakened due to the centralization of management of functions and spending in the regional capital. A doctor from Matera, Dr. Corradi Danzi, former vice-president of the Senate health commission, intervenes on the topic, and is well aware of the staffing shortages of the Matera hospital and the difficulties of his colleagues in operating in an unsatisfactory situation, in various respects. The Region has announced a meeting on a date to be established with the Miulli leaders to find a solution. Danzi and the Terra D’Otranto association are concrete and look to the future, without having many illusions about the possibility that the “right to treatment” for many people from Matera can be guaranteed on site. Danzi is lapidary and the following note explains it.
“And Potenza continues to penalize Matera – writes Corrado Danzi. Not only on skills and management transfers but unfortunately on the right to adequate care. Going to the Acquaviva delle Fonti hospital (Bari) for visits and surgical operations has never been a habit of us Materans, but rather the need to be adequately assisted, also by many professionals who have moved from our hospital to where they are better paid and have modern and…functioning machinery. The feeling, which is getting closer and closer to a sad reality, is that the Faculty of Medicine (which was not and is not the priority for Lucanian healthcare) in Potenza is instrumental in ensuring that San Carlo becomes a hospital. But what do we people from Matera have to do with Potenza? It is useless to repeat, for the umpteenth time, the marginalization to which we are subjected by the regional capital. We have talked about it many times and the situation is there for all to see, with a continuous healthcare migration and not only from Matera. It is easy to dismiss these problems with the recurring accusation of parochialism. Too easy and obvious. The logic of numbers, 100 municipalities with 31 leaves no room for any comparison and if this region is dealing with continuous emigration of young people who are our future, there are precise responsibilities. There are no “mea culpas”. We are not standing by and after mid-August, as the Terra D’Otranto Committee, we will present the application to the Municipality for the transfer of the city of Matera to Puglia. They will have to respond to us within a month, after which we will need 5000 signatures from our fellow citizens. And we will be able to go, this is certain, easily to Acquaviva and throughout Puglia to be treated, without hearing from the affiliated private centers a reply after just 6 months that the allocated budgets have run out and the treatments, consequently, have to be paid for. Now we are really tired. On behalf of myself and Senator Tito Di Maggio we will fight for Matera in Puglia. We will have to fight but this time for survival.” Clearer than that…
