It looks like a joke that is happening to retired doctors who have made themselves available to give injections to Italians in vaccination hubs that sprout like mushrooms all over Italy. For them, the health care companies have provided service contracts for a minimum of 38 hours a week, only a rule in force since mid-March provides that the social security treatment (the pension) is not paid during the months of the activity. With the effect that several retired white coats now risk losing out of their own pocket. Now the risk is that of a leak of these vaccinators.
The letter denounces the former San Raffaele primary
“Rather than paying to work, I prefer to do business for free instead of giving up my pension.” So wrote to the ASL of Melegnano (Milan) Carlo Staudacher, former head of general surgery at San Raffaele, one of the many retired doctors who have decided to put on his coat to contribute to the vaccination campaign. Like many others, however, he discovered that, based on an amendment to the decree-law 2/2021 introduced on March 12, retired doctors who are contracted for the vaccination campaign are suspended from retirement. Staudacher, 77 years old, Vittorio’s son considered the father of emergency surgery in Italy, despite living in Milan since March he served as a vaccinator “wherever they sent me, from Trezzo, to Melzo, to Cernusco, working 8 hours a day for 5 days, including Saturday and Sunday ». “I am a doctor – he explains – I could not stand and see thousands of dead without doing anything”.
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Risk of escape of vaccinators: “So we lose”
In his letter, the former San Raffaele primary raises an alarm due to the fact that he has already seen “many colleagues give up” while “many others will – he adds – because in a measure to combat the epidemic they have placed a constraint that is seriously disincentive “. Staudacher has known Letizia Moratti, Lombardy Region Welfare Councilor for years, «and I contacted her to explain the problem. He told me that they will ask the government for a change but the times are long ». For the now retired doctor, “it is not a question of money but of dignity. I now take the compensation of 44 years of activity and I have obviously given my availability for such an important emergency. But – he concludes – if I get sick, now I don’t perceive anything and the difference between pension and co.co.co. it is an amount that the doctor pays to the state for vaccinations ».
The medical insurance institution confirms: senseless rule
Enpam also confirms the nonsense of a rule, introduced last month, which obliges the social security institutions to suspend the pensions of doctors who agree to help the local health authorities to cope with the Covid emergency. “It is curious that a self-employed freelancer willing to do a new work of collective utility should have the deferred income legitimately deriving from a previous job suspended”, warns Alberto Oliveti, president of the medical and dentist welfare institution. “It is absurd that a doctor who works and who risks not being paid – continues Oliveti – We ask the Government and Parliament to correct this distortion”. The reference is to article 3-bis of the decree-law 2/2021, which was introduced on 12 March with the conversion law 29/2021. On the one hand, the law provides that during the Covid emergency health and social-health companies can confer remunerated assignments to doctors who have retired in old age, but on the other hand it provides that the social security treatment (i.e. the pension) is not paid “for the monthly salaries for which the assignment is paid “.