“First of all, I express my most heartfelt and affectionate condolences to Mrs Leo, her father and the whole family, for the loss of her dear mother”. The mayor says so Franz Caruso responding to Mrs. Leo's public letter in which she recounts the health vicissitudes of her poor mother, who recently passed away, and in which she asks the mayor of Cosenza to intervene to denounce with her the serious critical issues present in the Cosenza Hospital.
“I cannot remain insensitive, because I am not, to the heartfelt invitation that Mrs. Leo has formulated to me – continues Mayor Franz Caruso – The battle that I am invited to wage, in reality, I have been carrying forward since my inauguration by constantly intervening with declarations, press releases, public and private meetings so that, in our hospital structure, the trend is finally reversed and we begin to provide efficient and effective services, capable of ensuring the essential levels of assistance and guaranteeing the right to health of citizens/users . Today I take to the field again, accepting Mrs. Leo's request, out of human closeness and also in an attempt to give her comfort, as much as possible, reiterating together with her and those who are victims of the ineffective regional and Cosenza hospital health system, that this state of affairs is no longer acceptable. Governor Occhiuto, in his capacity as ad acta commissioner for Calabrian health, takes note of this and takes action within his competence and, above all, responsibility to improve health and hospital services in Calabria and Cosenza where, despite the quality of our doctors and all healthcare personnel, the situation is becoming increasingly gangrenous. And, in fact, among other things, with nurses and doctors forced to work shifts that are often exhausting due to the chronic shortage of human resources, it is not possible to ensure the assistance that our loved ones already tried by the pain and suffering of the disease deserve. We therefore end up recording, and this is not a justification towards those who, unlike others, do not carry out their duties with the necessary humanity and professionalism, the degradation that Mrs Leo talks about, in which she mortifies herself , and it is terrifying, the very dignity of the human being. In all of this, in assuring Mrs. Leo that I will never be silent with respect to the absolutely critical conditions in which the Calabrian and Cosenza healthcare system finds itself, which has worsened disproportionately with the advent of the commissioner and governor Occhiuto, I renew to the latter the appeal to break down the wall of silence that he has erected and to give answers to the Calabrians who have the right to know the reasons for choices, often absurd, such as, to recall some of my latest battles, the closure of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Annunziata or the Punto birth of the Sacred Heart”.
“I symbolically embrace Mrs. Leo – concludes Mayor Franz Caruso – whose words moved and outraged me, showing her my unconditional human and institutional solidarity”.