Important changes from today, July 1st, to the radiotherapy service of the ASP of Trapani which is carried out at the hospital of Mazara del Vallo.
Starting today, in fact, the Radiotherapy service of the “Abele Ajello” Hospital in Mazara del Vallo will be managed directly by the ASP of Trapani, marking the end of the agreement with the Villa Santa Teresa clinic in Bagheria. The news comes after days of concerns raised by the mayors of Marsala, Massimo Grillo, and Mazara del Vallo, Salvatore Quinci, regarding a possible closure of the service.
In a note addressed to the Commissioner of the ASP of Trapani, Ferdinando Croce, the mayors had expressed alarm at the rumors of closure, highlighting the importance of the service for cancer patients in the area. “The closure of the Abele Ajello Radiotherapy Service would mean enormous inconvenience for patients, forced to go to Bagheria for treatments, with increased costs and uncertainties about the continuity of the treatments already started”, wrote the mayors.
Commissioner Croce’s response was timely, reassuring about the continuation of the service. “Having completed the outsourcing phase with the support of the San Gaetano Nuclear Medicine Center in Bagheria which lasted seven years and completed the training of the ASP staff, from today we provide this type of care to patients with the same methods as before, thanks to a specialist team entirely made up of company employees,” declared Croce. He also underlined that there will be no inconvenience for patients, who will continue to receive radiotherapy treatments as normal.
This evolution had been announced in January by the then commissioner Vincenzo Spera, who had explained how, with the end of the agreement on June 30, the service would pass to the public management of the ASP of Trapani from July 1, 2024. Spera had also announced an increase in the staff and technological equipment of the department, with the hiring of new radiotherapists and physicists.
The agreement with the Bagheria clinic, started in 2017, has allowed approximately 6,000 cancer patients to be treated in Mazara del Vallo, with a very high recovery rate, equal to 70% of patients treated and over 90% for breast cancer. The service has avoided long and tiring journeys for hundreds of patients every year, allowing them to receive effective treatment close to home.
