His candidacy for the Lombardy regional elections is one of those which, in the social world, made noise, because few expected that Luca Meansborn in 1968, Milanese, Catholic-democratic background, always involved in the Third sector, both professionally and humanly, choose the list of Attilio Fontana. And instead when he himself gave the news, “Whatsapping” it to a wide circle of friends, and it spread, someone asked if it really was “that Degani”, the lawyer, the president of the National Union of institutions and initiatives of social assistance – Uneba Lombardyil gathering of non-profit organizations operating in the field of elderly care, from which he suspended himself. If he was the one who studied Catholic, he played in Dialogue and Renewal during his university years (the list of the “forge” area) and sang in the musical Chapel of the Cathedral.
Degani, whom we meet in his Milanese studio overlooking the gardens of the Triennale, smiles: «Well, I also frequented the Chapel as an adult, for years: singing is my great passion. Together with Milan, I would say. Beats them all, both, the one for my 16-year-old daughter, Linda»
Degani, how did Governor Fontana convince you? What did he promise her? Around someone says: “To be a commissioner.”
Fontana “convinced” me by telling me: «I accept that you can bring your ideas, your own identity from the point of view of thematic, Third sector, social and socio-healthcare. I promise you nothing more.”
I turn the question: why in politics? What does he hope to do?
That’s why I didn’t want a “party” but a civic list: doing politics. If I am elected, as regional councilor, I want to make politics in sectors that I know well, with my ideas. I would like to try to address, upstream and not downstream, the problems of the social health and non-profit sector. Applying is an attempt to infer in the construction of the next territorial social and health system, with particular attention to the world of frailty and chronicity. And then there is the great concern, not only mine, that the current Reform of the Third Sector could bring more harm than good to a wide range of associations and foundations but, paradoxically, also to social cooperation itself.
Let’s explain it well.
Yes because the reform has, on the one hand, heavily bureaucratized the process of joining the Single National Register of the Third Sector – Runts because today, with almost half of the voluntary organizations – Odv and Association for social promotion – Aps still not transmigrated, it is a real flop and, on the other hand, the intentional repeal of the non-profit organization underlies a vision in which the value of “social utility”, in the solidarity and social sense, risks being little perceived in the broader context of the commons. Common goods which, personally, I appreciate very much when it comes to the principle of subsidiarity as the first indicator of their valorisation, but which must be primarily intended for the protection of social fragility.
What does “attention to the world of fragility and chronicity” mean, from a chair at the Pirellone?
The fundamental theme remains that in our region alone, 100,000 beds for the elderly and disabled, the widespread presence of day services for these people and 95 percent of integrated home care are managed by non-profit organizations. Yet at this moment, by way of example, these realities see national legislation that prevents them from accessing the almost 3 billion euros of funds allocated for integrated home care-Adi.
This because?
The structure of the pacts with the EU has absurdly foreseen that the infrastructuring of the collective health protection system should only have public management.
Well, a good challenge is being played on chronicity.
We have a population that has “defeated” major acute diseases: cardiopulmonary disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, which once led to death quite rapidly. Today they go chronic, even in a population that may be young, as happened with HIV-positive people. Of course, the elderly are often chronic and frail.