if they ask you, you can report it to the public relations office of the Asp
You do not need the Green pass to access the services of the National Health Service but not everyone knows it and perhaps not even all the operators in the sector have understood the rule. This is what emerges from the experience of the journalist Marta Genova, who tells, for BlogSicilia, what happened personally to her and the response of the ASP of Palermo: users can report any discrepancies to the competent office
The story
“It could happen, as has happened to other citizens, to book, for yourself or for your child, a” welfare service “, at the ASP of Palermo (the provincial health company that depends, together with eight others, on Regional Department of Health), and that the doctor or the person making the reservation asks you over the phone, the obligatory display of the Green pass or tampon in order to take advantage of the assistance.
Well, know that this is an “error” that the doctor makes, a “wrong interpretation of the current legislation”, and nothing of the kind can be asked of users who must take advantage of a health service at the ASP.
Let’s take a step back
It happens that a parent, who wanted to be a journalist, the undersigned, is set an appointment and that the doctor of the ward, at the end of the phone call, says «Are you and your daughter vaccinated? Because access can only take place upon presentation of the green pass, both for the first visit and then possibly for the subsequent ones that will be necessary ».
I ask for explanations and I am reiterated that it is the law, that it works like this and it works like this everywhere.
The answer does not fit me at all given that article 10 of the law of 23 December 1978, n. 833 (institution of the national health service), relating to the “territorial organization”, states that “The unitary management of health protection is provided in a uniform way throughout the national territory through a complete network of local health units. (…) On the basis of the criteria established by regional law, the municipalities, single or associated, or mountain communities divide the local health units into basic health districts, as technical-functional structures for the provision of first-level services and first aid”.
The legislation
And again, with respect to these services, here is what the legislation says about it: “The essential levels of assistance (LEA) are the services that the National Health Service (SSN) is required to provide to all citizens, free of charge or against payment. of a participation fee (ticket), with public resources collected through general taxation (taxes) “.
The fundamental principles on which the Nation Health Service has been based since its establishment, which took place with the law n.833 of 1978, are universality, equality and equity. It reads: “Health is everyone’s right, protected by the Italian Constitution”. The National Health Service (SSN) is a system of structures and services that aim to guarantee all citizens, in conditions of equality, universal access to the equitable provision of health services, in implementation of Article 32 of the Constitution.
Interlocution with the Asp
What I decided to do then was to write, specifying that I was a parent but also a journalist, a long and detailed e-mail addressed to the general management of the Palermo ASP, to the president of the Sicilian Region Musumeci, to the councilor for Sanità Razza, the Privacy Guarantor, as well as the Higher Institute of Health.
After a couple of days I was contacted; a long morning of phone calls began, even with the same doctor who had set my appointment who kept reiterating that things are as she had said and that the decree they must comply with establishes it.
It is noted that the decree does not oblige any user to have a Green Pass to access the services and that if entry is denied, it is an offense. The doctor replies that she would have called her lawyer to inquire and understand what she would have risked by letting a user / patient in without the green pass.
The question on the table of the Director General
In the meantime, the matter has reached the secretariat of Dr. Daniela Faraoni, general manager of the Palermo ASP; I am contacted on the phone and they tell me that – following comparisons with the various districts of the Asp of Palermo, and therefore following verification – it is clear that it was a mistake and they reiterate that in no provincial health company it can be requested green certification to access services.
Here comes the clarification: it is a mistake, you do not need a green pass
Situation clarified and then resolved, but there was still the last thing to fix; because if it is true that as a user / parent (my) problem has found a solution, it is also true that as a journalist I am required to inform citizens of how things are. And if doctors make an error of interpretation with respect to a norm, the role of the journalist requires them to render a service to the reader, that is to say that every citizen even without green certification can access the health service like any other, without any distinction and inequality.
The official answer of the Asp
Therefore, considering my “double role”, an official response from the Company was necessary. Here it is: “The legislation currently in force allows access to the services of the National Health Service to users without the green pass. Any discrepancies, as far as the Palermo ASP is concerned, can be reported to the competent Public Relations Office “.
Marta Genova