«What is happening at Castrovillari Hospital is of an unprecedented severity. With a sudden communication, without any warning, signed by the General Director Antonello Graziano, it is ordered that from 1 December a Hemodynamics nurse – a fundamental branch of Cardiology and a life-saving service for patients suffering from a heart attack – will be transferred and so will a Cuban doctor, a clinical cardiologist, “transitionally” to the Cardiology of Rossano. An overused formula: they write “temporary”, but we know well how these transfers end, as, moreover, has always happened in the past. They are actually definitive!
The regional councilor Ferdinando Laghi firmly denounces what he defines as «yet another, very violent attack on the Castrovillari hospital and, above all, on the populations and patients of the entire central-northern area of the province of Cosenza».
«We are talking – states Laghi – about the flagship of the Castrovillari hospital, a department that for years has saved lives and represented an irreplaceable point of reference, also due to its centrality within the province of Cosenza. And while the ASP decides to transfer key personnel, there is also a persistent rumor that on December 31st they even want to close and move the Hemodynamics department. A choice which, if confirmed, would be equivalent to a mortal blow for the right to health of our communities.”
«The situation is made even more serious by the fact that the department has already suffered the loss of a doctor who retired a few weeks ago and will lose another shortly, for the same reason. «Instead of hiring, strengthening, stabilizing – continues Laghi – we proceed with the emptying, implemented with scientific premeditation, of an essential service. All this in the deafening silence of those who should defend the hospital.”
And on these notes, Laghi calls all the institutional actors involved to their responsibilities: «The head of Cardiology cannot accept that decades of work, sacrifices and excellent results are swept away, the health management must defend the internal structures and not stand by and watch. The mayor, the first guarantor of public health, cannot remain silent. But also – underlines the Secretary Quaestor of the Regional Council – the fellow Regional Councilors Riccardo Rosa and Gianluca Gallo, who live in Castrovillari and were elected with the votes of Castrovillari and its district, must take a position and intervene actively: we cannot pretend nothing has happened while a vital service is being taken away from the city”.
Laghi announces immediate political, institutional and public mobilization initiatives: «We will not allow the pernicious weakening of public health in the area to be disguised as reorganization. We will not accept any more muggings, we will not accept any more lies. Castrovillari’s spoke will not be dismantled in silence. We will defend the hospital with every democratic initiative at our disposal.”