“The key word is ‘abandonment.’ No one was behind anything, there were no rules.” It certainly cannot be said that the general director of the ASP Lucia Di Furia likes to mince words. She likes to call things by their name, to claim what has been done during her management, to criticize even vehemently those who do not accept the new course or those who in the past have often looked the other way. We meet the health manager in the editorial office for a wide-ranging and unfiltered interview. She herself gives the title to her “report”: “Much has been done, but much remains to be done”.
The papers with data and accounts on the table, easy speech and a body language that exudes confidence. In the discussion, all the hot topics regarding the management of healthcare in this part of Calabria are touched upon: hospitals, hiring, healthcare stations scattered throughout the territory, shirkers, investments already made and those that are ready to go. Without neglecting the aspect of the financial and management health of the ASP because, as Lucia Di Furia repeats several times, “without the balance sheet a company does not exist”.
Let’s start from the beginning, from the first approach of the manager from the Marche who makes her debut as commissioner of theASP of Reggio Calabria. “There are no words,” she begins. “To say I was shocked is an understatement. One of the first things I did was to go and visit a few hospitals and the first impact was the “famous” emergency room in Polistena: there were holes in the floor, a terrible situation. I say this with great respect, because I was sorry not only for how the professionals were forced to work, but also for how the patients were welcomed. And then exposed wires, it seemed like a minefield.”
And this was just the beginning: “It’s not that I found the rest in better conditions, apart from a few small, more cared for realities. The feeling I had at the beginning was of a general state of abandonment of the structures and technologies. Nobody was keeping track of anything, even from an administrative point of view there were no rules”.
And to start implementing them, the ASP had to equip itself with a management group suited to the purpose: «We have placed 17 administrative managers in this company to work on circularization (quantification of the debt, ed.) – he declares – by bringing in qualified professionals and we have gradually managed to get back on track with these debts and we expect to reach a figure that is starting to become minimal by the end of 2024».
For years, controversies have raged in the territories over the reduced number of doctors and paramedics: spontaneous committees for the right to health are born, mayors are often on the barricades and even in hospitals there are those who often complain.
“In the meantime, I tell you that this company – says Di Furia – in the space of a couple of years has not only guaranteed turnover, but has increased the positions of health workers. At the hospital in Polistena, for example, competitions were held for 203 people, 108 of whom left, so we guaranteed turnover. The balance is 95 more health workers, not counting the Cuban doctors. It doesn’t seem like much to me. But the overall effort in the health facilities in the area was over a thousand professionals, therefore guaranteeing turnover and improving by about 377 units. In a company where no one was being hired, if we hadn’t started to introduce these new figures, we would have closed the hospitals. I understand everything, but if you start from below zero it’s clear that no one can perform miracles. It’s clear that it’s still not enough: it’s not enough in terms of infrastructure, it’s not enough in terms of technology, it’s not enough in terms of personnel. It’s not that we stopped because we reached the goal. My goal is to restore the company from all points of view, starting with its administrative and accounting credibility, which is no joke.”
The general manager does not accept criticism on personnel management and new hires. «When Cuban professionals are assigned to me, now there will be a new batch, they are assigned to me by the Region with those characteristics. I cannot put, for example, an additional gastroenterologist in Polistena if I don’t have even one in Locri. So you can’t offend Polistena, because in that hospital I also took the exam and there is a gastroenterologist. I put him in Locri where we don’t have that figure. The latest controversy is about the anesthetist resuscitator, but where do I get him from if we don’t have him?».
