Disappointed, alone and unemployed, Doctor Francesco Zambon leaves: With a mortgage to pay, I decided to put my house in Venice up for sale and move into a family apartment up in the mountains.
Not that the former WHO official has ended up on the pavement, mind you, but two accounts in his pocket if he did too and decided that without a salary he could no longer afford the lagoon city where he worked for years. Trevigiano di Vittorio Veneto, Zambon resigned from the WHO three months ago denouncing the opacities of the highest world health organization: the lack of transparency and independence, conflicts of interest, national pandemic plan not updated and that report, later withdrawn, in which he defined the Italian response to the Covid emergency as improvised. Accusations put in black and white first in front of the magistrates of Bergamo and then between the pages of an uncomfortable book, Il Pesce piccolo, in which he relaunched his outburst.
Doctor Zambon, resignation paid for dearly.
Gi, I worked for 13 years in the WHO on a permanent contract. First five years in Moscow, then Venice … I also had to give up the severance pay. By internal regulation, when you resign from the Organization you are not entitled to severance pay.
So you don’t have any more income?
the reason I’m trying to sell the little house I bought in town. I could also rent it but the difficult period. In any case, I have already moved to Domegge, Cadore, in a small family apartment.
Can you tell us how much he earned at WHO?
The cost for the company was $ 220,000 a year, the salary about 7,500 euros net per month. My retirement contract was worth nearly $ 4 million. Let’s face it: no one ever resigns from the WHO.
A salary mister, couldn’t he fight his battles by staying in the facility?
The work environment had become difficult, I was increasingly marginalized. However, it was not an easy choice. Let’s say that the question of principle prevailed in me: the WHO had betrayed its mission of independence, transparency, a super partes body that protects the health of citizens around the world. My pandemic report was withdrawn only because it bothered the Italian government, not for reasons of truth. Unacceptable.
Were you pressured?
Since May of last year, when I delivered the report. Dr. Guerra, WHO director of prevention, had asked me to change the text, otherwise he would have gone to Tedros, the organization’s chief executive, to say that I was putting WHO at reputational risk. The truth is that WHO is under internal pressure from people who have interests other than public health.
You told all this to the Bergamo Public Prosecutor’s Office, where there is an ongoing investigation and where the deputy director of WHO Ranieri Guerra, under investigation for forgery, has filed a memorandum in which he claims different things: that the pandemic plan was not updated except in 2017 and that the decision to remove the report was made elsewhere.
Not so and I add: last year the Bergamo Public Prosecutor summoned me three times to testify but the WHO has never given the authorization invoking the functional immunity that belongs to the employees of the United Nations. Until December I went spontaneously. And I went back last week.
With his resignation he perhaps anticipated his dismissal, don’t you think?
I was not fired. I have never had a recall, rather only recognition for the performances. Last September, after I spoke to Report, they proposed that I move to Bulgaria. And I had also accepted but then the second wave broke out and nothing was done.
He feels alone?
I lacked support within the WHO, no one defended me because the climate is one of terror. Outside, on the other hand, I had a lot of solidarity. There are people who stop me on the street to thank me.
What to do now?
I had some proposals, I’m considering. I have a degree in medicine and specialize in public health. I have always been involved in health and health policies. Do this.
Aren’t you afraid of finding the big fish of health?
Yes, absolutely, but I also think there are some waters where small fish are most appreciated. And then there are many small fish and they can join together.
June 19, 2021 (change June 19, 2021 | 07:33 am)
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