Catanzaro – Shortage of doctors on 118 ambulances. After the cases that were registered in Lametino, the president of the Region and Calabrian health commissioner, Roberto Occhiuto, urged by reporters on the sidelines of the first regional conference on mental health which took place this morning in Cittadella, he drew up the guidelines for the reform of the regional emergency-urgency system.
“For months, the offices of the Health Protection Department together with Sub-Commissioner Esposito – said Occhiuto – on my mandate, had the task of adapting the supplementary contract for doctors, a contract that dates back to 2006. I also asked to put in order with regard to the requests made by the ASPs to some doctors to have returned sums which, according to them, had been unduly received. This is because a few years ago an investigation by the Prosecutor of Cosenza certified that some sums that some doctors received could not be attributed to them by the provincial health authorities. There is someone who protests – the Health Commissioner found – partly because he has reasons to do so and partly because his health company has asked him to return important sums ”.
As regards the need to reorganize the regional emergency / urgency network, the president stated: “We have been collaborating for 3-4 months with a public company, Areu, which is managing the implementation of the single number 112 throughout Italy. It is a Lombard company. Territorial health does not even work in Lombardy, but the emergency urgency in Lombardy works. Since this public company has expertise in this sector, I asked them to help us reorganize the emergency urgency system in Calabria. Currently – argued President Occhiuto – there are several plants disconnected from each other, when fully operational there will be a single plant that will be in the Citadel building and then two plants, one in Cosenza and Reggio. But the emergency urgency system must work with more organization, with more doctors but also in a more coordinated way. In Reggio the emergency urgency system is not even connected to the internet. This is the sanity that I have collected. Many would like me to have the magic wand and be able to solve problems not solved in 15 years in a few months, I say that I will solve the problems but how to do it, starting from the construction of the organization. Anyway, in 4-5 months we should have the single number 112 working that the operations center at the Citadel will have, in front of it there will be the operations center of 118: for 118 I hope that the service can be organized and functioning by October- November”.
Bruno Mirante