Of MICHELE TRIPODI – Thousands of people participated in the demonstration on May 4th Healthcare Call, promoted by the Municipal Administration of Polistena.
Over 100 official adhesions from organizations, schools, unions, parties, associations, over 30 adhesions from the Reggio and Calabrian municipalities.
It was a strong, democratic moment of protest which took on colorful and original forms such as the flashmob initiative with the human writing +Health made by the girls. There are not only important words that remain like boulders, said on stages, that Commissioner/President Occhiuto cannot ignore.
Furthermore, 20 interventions alternated, a sign that democracy is something that cannot be flaunted from the rooftops, it can be done whenever you want. In Polistena it is a recurring exercise that is carried out every day. The perfidious attempt was (and is still underway) to diminish the success and importance of the event. Silly denialism but not only that.
We don’t even consider the usual four idiots anymore… instead we reject with disdain those who hypocritically pretend to fight for the hospital but wish it didn’t exist, at least in Polistena.
This city is annoying, it is no coincidence that there are also those who would like to permanently eliminate it from the map. They are the ones, those of the interregnum, that of the transversal political consortiums, that of the indifference who in recent days have officially written or said one thing but worked systematically (behind the scenes) to delegitimize the scope and meaning of the May 4th demonstration.
Deny what is contained in DCA/78, an official document signed by the Commissioner Roberto Occhiuto(this yes), means doing it on the political side.
But not only. It means, more seriously, denying the ongoing dismantling of public healthcare, it means denying the attack against the Polistena hospital and against the city of Polistena. There are 70 staff units missing in the hospital despite the excellent Cuban doctors, health workers are on notice, no serious investment for the structure has been planned.
While at the twin spoke hospital in Locri 14 million are spent on works, while for the Palmi hospital another 150 million euros are spent, at the Polistena hospital where the performance is double compared to the numbers of Locri it is not done Nothing.
The 35 million Inail funds theoretically foreseen for Polistena are among the projects that can be evaluated but for now they do not exist regardless of what Occhiuto says.
There are no other competing funds for Polistena either. So? How do we put it?
What does all this mean?
It simply means what is written in DCA 78. The clues are all too clear. For all these reasons, the lightness of judgments on the issues at the center of the demonstration are equivalent to disinterest or worse still complicity of those who would like to decree the cancellation of the Polistena hospital.
For these reasons, for me, for us the fight did not end on May 4th and will not end even when Occhiuto wants to rewrite DCA 78 by eliminating, hopefully soon, the same provision that Commissioner Massimo was forced to eliminate (due to Polistena’s protest). Dark .
Back then, however, there were no gags like today and the center-left governed the region.
The fight for the Polistena hospital and for public health therefore goes beyond bright colors, beyond indignant faces, beyond the beautiful music of the great demonstration on May 4th.
The fight must continue. And it will continue. (m)
[Michele Tripodi è sindaco di Polistena]
