“If the State and its branches on the territory do not guarantee the right to health even to the disabled, then it is time not to pay taxes. And so I will do from now on, hoping that many other people with disabilities will do the same thing”. If this is not a real “tax strike”, it is very close to it. It is certainly a bitter provocation that of Luca Garofalo, a young 35-year-old from Cotronei, who has been suffering from a serious degenerative neuromotor disease for years, has been fighting against the rubber walls of bureaucracy and politics for just as long to claim health services and aids that make his daily life easier to live. He even reached the rooms that matter, having been appointed to the staff of the regional guarantor of disability. But at the moment not even this has unblocked his last, evidently well-founded, claim.
His conditions, as certified by top-level national specialists, require the use of a special electric wheelchair, the Extreme 8, not eligible for full reimbursement by the Asp of Crotone because it is not included in the tariff nomenclature, which has been in place since 1999, despite having to be renewed, by law, every 3 years. Of the 32 thousand euros needed for the purchase, the Region would reimburse only 13 thousand. The rest would be paid by Luca, who simply cannot afford it. The Governor of Calabria, as well as the extraordinary commissioner for health, Roberto Occhiuto, also dealt with the issue, but at the moment he has not been able to overcome the rigid bureaucratic provisions that the top management of the Crotone ASP have adhered to in not authorising the expenditure. for the purchase of the garrison. As usual, Luca is keen to point out that this latest provocation, like his many other battles, are aimed at protecting the general interests of people with disabilities, and not his personal needs. And as usual, it will be hard to make him desist.