28 March 2023, 12:46
2′ OF READING
(Roberto Puglisi) Black smoke from the meeting between the affiliated private individuals and the councilor for healthJoanna Volo. The agitation continues. “Nothing, unfortunately. They have proposed an increase of eleven million euros, compared to the sixty million that would be needed, we confirm the state of agitation and from the 20th of each month we will be forced to suspend the agreed services due to the end of the budget”. Thus the coordinators of CIMEST (Inter-union Coordination of Territorial Outpatient Specialist Medicine), Salvatore Gibiino and Salvatore Calvarusoat the end of the meeting.
A tense meeting
The bell that rings, at the moment, awaiting an official note from Piazza Ziino, seat of the councilorship and of the meeting, is that of the trade unionists who have discussed with the owner of Health in Sicily. It tells of a tense meeting, with some polemical peaks. “For Councilor Volo – say Gibiino and Calvaruso – the private agreement is a simple support to the public, to be used occasionally. Instead, our sector is increasingly essential for the health of Sicilians and for local surveillance. If there is no support due, they will pay the sick, who will not be able to be treated. Not to mention the employment repercussions on employees who carry on their commitment with self-sacrifice”. These are very different tones from the ‘opening’ tones with which the suspension of the dispute was announced a few weeks ago, pending the briefing of today. That didn’t go well.
The thorns of health
That of the private partner it is only one of the many open games in the difficult moment of Sicilian Healthcare – like the others, more than the others – engaged in the complex escape from a pandemic that has shown the limits of the system, indicating, perhaps, some paths, which, however, are not be followed. There is the intricate knot of the Covid precarious workers who will be received, through the union representatives, on March 31 next, to discuss the stabilization draft designed by the councilorship. There is the protest of the network of popular clinics – which treat patients without resources, clinging to endless public lists – with a sit in scheduled for April 15th. A look at the general situation offers an x-ray of cracks and fissures that politics should govern, even if many issues come from the past. But the present has the appearance of a very rapidly approaching drama. And the protagonists, despite themselves, are and will be Sicilians in need of care.
Volo: “Confident in a shared solution”
According to the regional councilor for health, Giovanna Volo, today’s meeting with the representatives of the affiliated private laboratories “was held with the utmost frankness on all the issues to be addressed. We have brought to the table some proposals that are feasible in relation to the resources that are currently at our disposal for 2022 and 2023″. Not only. “The unions have given us a counter-proposal that we will check in the next few days. The table has been updated and we will meet again in eight days. The meeting took place in an atmosphere of great fairness and we are confident that a shared solution can be found”, concluded Councilor Volo at the end of the meeting with the union representatives of the laboratories and private clinics having an agreement.