Healthcare expenses, the son of an old woman wins the battle against RSA

The strictly health services provided to the guests of the RSA (assisted healthcare residences) are borne by the National Health Service and not by the families: the Court of Verona had established this in 2016, the Court of Appeal of Venice confirmed it on 22 July and, five days later, it was the Court of Cassation that made it an assumption that is now unquestionable. If the last ruling relates to an event that took place in Lombardy, the first (challenged by a Veronese RSA) and the second concern instead a lady from Verona.

“It’s about my mother, Bruna Lorenzetti, that at a certain point of her and my ordeal the RSA that welcomed her threatened to expel for mere money matters “, denounces the son Luciano Aldrighetti. Ms. Bruna, who passed away in 2013, was born in Casaleone in 1933 and in 2009 she was recognized as 100% disabled due to severe Alzheimer’s type senile dementia: “She had only me and at the time of her permanent placement in RSA, in August 2011, I found myself in front of a contract of almost 30 pages which committed me to pay the social-assistance fee of the tuition, corresponding to about three times the resources that my mother could make available, that is the pension and the accompanying allowance. A take-it-or-leave-it contract, which also required the payment of a security deposit, ”says the son.

The clinical picture, which already presupposes interventions of a health nature, becomes complicated the following year and Mrs Bruna undergoes a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy: in that same year, however, her economic resources are exhausted, the son cannot make them available. and does not receive a response to the request for integration made to the Municipality that has an agreement with the RSA. The fees therefore begin to remain unfulfilled and the first injunctive decree arrives that Aldrighetti holds. At this point the judicial dispute arises that on 21 March 2016 sees the RSA succumb because the Court of Verona recognizes that where the service provided is of health character the costs must be borne by the National Health Service.

The RSA appealed but on 22 July the Court of Appeal of Venice confirmed the ruling of the Scaligero court: “(…) expenditure entirely borne by the National Health Service is allowed in the presence of” pure “or” inseparable “with the social welfare ones” and even if there is no therapeutic program “it is not important that the structure is accredited by the National Health Service. In this second case, since an expense to be borne by the client is not predictable, since all charges are borne by the State, the contract (with RSA, ed) can only be considered null ”. The Court of Appeal has therefore the RSA was condemned to return the entire amount paid for the entire period of hospitalization of Mrs. Bruna and to pay the costs of litigation.

On 27 July (judgment 21528) the Court of Cassation confirmed that the existence of a personalized treatment plan is relevant for the purposes of compulsory health care. “I have to thank the Diana association and the lawyer Maria Luisa Tezza that spurred me to go on: this victory does not compensate for the sufferings and humiliations that my mother suffered and those that I suffered but I am happy because now no one will have to suffer what we have suffered. The law states that where there is health treatment there can be no tariff bargaining, much less in structures that are accredited or affiliated to provide a service entrusted to the public health service. Today, with the disappearance of long-term care and rehabilitation, the RSA are more and more health facilities but in the end either these contracts are signed or the elderly are kept at home. But how? Things like these “, concludes Aldrighetti,” should not be dealt with by the courts but by Parliament, which should regulate the sector and the services that the RSA should provide, is the right of each of us. The mechanism, it is evident, has flaws ».