by Patrizia Massara Di Nallo (photo source Ansa)
REGGIO CALABRIA – The new Territorial Operations Center (Cot) of the Provincial Health Authority of Reggio Calabria was inaugurated today, which will serve to interconnect the hospital and territorial structures. During the inauguration which took place in the offices of via Willermin, Lucia Di Furia, general director of the Asp Reggio, explained that the Center will have “the task of acting as a hinge between the structures present in the hospital system and those that we have in the territory, both directly managed structures and those of the third sector with which we have agreements” and added that “the fundamental characteristic of the Cot is to interface with Gom with whom we must work in synergy for citizens who leave the hospital. For example, the Orthopedics department will have to report to the Cot in good time the patients who are discharged in order to activate the evaluation unit and decide to direct them, if it is not possible at home, to some residential structure with the characteristics required for that type of assistance”.
Gandolfo Miserendino, extraordinary commissioner of Azienda Zero, said: “the Cot will facilitate the discharge of patients from the hospital to their homes. We are trying to put together the resources that the regional health system provides, and in this case the Pnrr, with a view to what will be the integration between the hospital and the territory”. Miserendino added “They will be opened in all the Asp. This is the first in Reggio Calabria but then there will be others”. In fact, a first Cot in Calabria was activated in recent weeks in Crotone and the one in Reggio, which cost 253 thousand euros, was financed with Pnrr funds. Rubens Curia di Comunità Competente explained: “It is a first step of the Pnrr Today there is the Cot which is a piece of the mosaic.
Then there will be community hospitals which will be very important. Finally the company takes charge of the citizen’s health and offers a service”. Gianluigi Scaffidi, director of the Gom, stated: “the territorial operations center is a very important tool because it acts as an intermediary for the needs of the hospitalized patient who must be discharged and the structures in the area. Until now, this task was left, in an artisanal way, to relatives, head doctors and family doctors who had to look for a solution. From today, through the Cot, our departments, starting with Orthopedics, will have an interlocutor who takes care of placing the patient when he is discharged and allowing him to complete the care path”.
According to Scaffidi, even in private structures which “also serve this purpose, that is, on the one hand to complete treatment and on the other to decongest hospitals. It is a better way for healthcare responses. There is no need to be prejudiced against the private sector because it is paid for with public money. Obviously it shouldn’t be said that everyone will find the place because this depends on the availability in the area. And this is a problem because patients, if there are no places, go home. It’s not that with the opening of the Cot we have solved all the problems because Calabria has always had undersized funds compared to other regions”.
