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Reopen closed hospitals to provide Calabria with the beds needed to face the Covid emergency? In these stormy days in health care on the sole of the boot we talk about that. The region is a “red zone” precisely because, beyond the contagion numbers, the situation of a health network weakened by the closure of 18 hospitals worries, which took place 10 years ago, when the procedures for the payment plan and the commissioner began. Now the focus is on temporary beds to fill the gaps in the system.
The cuts date back to 2010. The governor was Giuseppe Scopelliti, to whom the government gave the commissioner powers with a precise mandate: to cut costs to make ends meet in a sector crushed by deficits. The president commissioner was forced to do so from the reduction of health facilities in the area. Of the 18 closed hospitals, two were “exhumed” by ruling of the State Council, those of Trebisacce and Praia a Mare, in Cosentino.
The rest remained closed or very small if they were not transformed into Health Homes. Four field hospitals, as announced in recent days by the Region, will be located in Cosenza, Crotone, Vibo Valentia and Locri. “We have achieved important goals such as the increase of 244 beds, including 10 intensive care, throughout the region and the hiring of 300 doctors and nurses to be assigned to the battle against the coronavirus,” said the Acting President of the Region. Nino Spirlì, according to whom the operation of the four field hospitals will improve the global healthcare offer.
Between the provincialism, the political appetite and the real needs of a mostly mountainous or rugged area, lacking adequate road connections with the main centers of the region, the dream of seeing the doors of closed hospitals reopened has materialized these days. The territories are receiving requests from which regional councilors and parliamentarians speak, but between saying and doing is the sea in the managerial chaos of these days.
The plan launched by Commissioner Giuseppe Scopelliti and Deputy Commissioner Pezzi in May-June 2010 envisaged the closure of the Cariati, Corigliano, Lungro and Mormanno, San Marco Argentano, Rogliano, Acri, Trebisacce and Praia a Mare hospitals in Cosentino ; Soriano and Nicotera in the Vibonese area; Chiaravalle Centrale in the Catanzaro area; Taurianova, Cittanova, Palmi, Oppido Mamertina, Siderno and Scilla in Reggino.
For Trebisacce and Praia a Mare, destined to become Case della Salute, the administrative justice ordered the reopening; other structures destined for closure have managed to survive although very small or such as Case della Salute. The Calabrian health system revolves around the four large hospital “centers”: the “Pugliese-Ciaccio” and the university polyclinic of Catanzaro, the great Metropolitan Hospital of Reggio and the Hospital of Cosenza as well as the hospitals of Crotone and Vibo Valentia.
But who should foresee the eventual reopening? Following the resignation of General Saverio Cotticelli and the resignations of Giuseppe Zuccatelli and Eugenio Gaudio, there is no commissioner. After the death of Jole Santelli there is not even the president of the Region. The council announces that it has no jurisdiction in the matter due to the commissioner. The anti-Covid plan, which Cotticelli should have provided, is missing.
There is a reorganization plan for the hospital network developed by the commissioner’s office, but it does not foresee the reopening of the disused structures. And then, the technicians explain, It’s not obvious that hospitals that have been closed for 10 years can reopen overnight.. “It would be necessary – says Agi Santo Gioffrè, doctor and former commissioner of the ASP of Reggio – to sanitize the rooms, acquire medical equipment, medicines, sheets and everything necessary, without considering the damage suffered by electrical systems and water pipes due to lack of use or episodes of vandalism ‘.
Then we would have to look for doctors, nurses, assistants.. It would take months, if not years. However, 49 million euros remain as a dowry to the Calabria region for the construction of health homes. “Initially – says Rubens Curia, former director of the regional health department – the EU had allocated 126 million euros. This money was used in part to pay off the debt, another 18 million originally intended for the transformation of Praia and Trebisacce into Case della Salute fell short after the ruling of the State Council. In any case – underlines the Curia – very little has been done about the original plan to convert closed hospitals into health homes ”.
Preliminary work has begun for the construction of the new hospital in Sibaritide, while the construction of two other hospitals has been expected for years: those of Piana di Gioia Tauro and that of Vibo Valentia. However, the Covid emergency is looming. It only remains to count on Civil Protection field hospitals. Which, at the moment, is the only safe data.
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