The protest to highlight the precarious health situation in Cosenza promoted by the Democrats did not see the mayor of Cosenza among those present, who explains: “Although unable to physically participate in the sit-in promoted this morning by the Democratic Party circle of Cosenza in front of the Annunziata hospital to raise public awareness on what is happening in the Cosenza hospital, the mayor Franz Carusoforced to stay at home for a few days due to a very annoying backache, did not fail to contribute to the initiative, sending a message to the organizers and participants, which was read during the event by city councilor Giuseppe Ciacco, president of the health commission of Palazzo dei Bruzi”.
The search for the turning point
“Today’s initiative,” wrote Mayor Franz Caruso in the message read during the sit-in, “must absolutely mark a turning point in the events that are affecting, even in these last hours, the Annunziata Civil Hospital, without losing sight, precisely because of the enormous problems that are affecting the health system in our city, of the objective of building, in the shortest time possible, the new Hub Hospital serving the city of Cosenza, but also a much larger territory that includes the entire province, that province that consistently and continuously pours its health emergencies right onto our hospital structure.” The mayor then defined the one that is being fought as “a real battle of civilization.” “A battle,” he added, “that, as a municipal administration, we have undertaken since the first moment of my inauguration at the helm of the city. Today the issue of building the new Hub Hospital in Cosenza becomes dramatically very topical again,” remarked Franz Caruso, “after what has happened in recent weeks. On this issue we will not retreat an inch because our high sense of responsibility requires us not to turn our heads away, as others have done, but it encourages us to seek solutions to fully protect the right to health of our fellow citizens that the current inefficient health system and an absolutely deficient hospital structure not only do not guarantee, but mortify and vilify with each passing day”. For Franz Caruso “the alarm must be raised loudly on the need to provide the Hospital with medical and paramedical personnel, necessary to guarantee minimum assistance to patients. And this is because in our Hospital there are not only structural problems, but there is a very serious problem of staff shortage”. Therefore, the Mayor stressed the need to act quickly. “On the health of citizens – he said – we cannot procrastinate beyond what is permitted. Today it is no longer possible to wait, because it is time for important decisions. The situation of the current Annunziata hospital speaks for itself, with staff shortages, irreparable structural deficits and the escape of professionals and excellence that is now the order of the day. The hospital shows the decadent face of an obsolete, impoverished structure that is no longer able to host a provincial HUB with emergency/urgency departments that need security and large volumes”. The mayor then returned to the exodus that is affecting some of the Annunziata’s excellences. “On the hemorrhage of white coats – Franz Caruso specified – a double wound is emerging. The first concerns the flight to other healthcare facilities of valid professionals and excellences such as the head of the Emergency Department, Dr. Domenico Lorenzo Urso, who has been in service for a very short time, and, lastly, the head of radiology Alfredo Zanolini, and Dr. Sebastiano Vaccarisi, head of the Hepatobiliary-pancreatic and transplant operating unit at Annunziata, who will go to direct Surgery at the Corigliano-Rossano Hospital”. Franz Caruso wanted to focus in particular on the Zanolini affair. “On his resignation, the hospital company provided a version of the facts, indicating that next October, Dr. Zanolini will reach the maximum retirement age, while it seems that the private contract that binds the professional to the Cosenza hospital company would allow him to remain in service until the end of 2027. We will see how it ends. We hope that the matter can be closed with the return of Alfredo Zanolini to the ranks of the Annunziata”. Franz Caruso, in the continuation of his message, also indicated another serious risk, namely that “the unstoppable hemorrhage of doctors cannot fail to have repercussions on the health of citizens, raising serious issues of public order that I have already brought to the attention of the Prefect, trusting in his intervention. But to this must be added that the exodus of excellent professionals will also effectively nullify the project of the construction of the new Hub hospital, which instead needs to be filled with content, starting with the further valorization and loyalty of existing healthcare personnel, who have always shown high levels of excellence, integrated by the entry of new professionals and further excellence”.
The importance of the hub hospital
These are the reasons why Mayor Franz Caruso believes that “the construction of the new Hub Hospital can no longer be postponed, as it has become an unavoidable and no longer postponable need. We must do it – reiterated Franz Caruso – because there is a need for an adequate structure to guarantee the protection of the health of our fellow citizens. But the new structure is also needed to restore dignity to the important work that medical, paramedical and auxiliary personnel can carry out in our territorial reality. The Annunziata Hospital cannot continue to be listed as the worst hospital in Italy, just as other issues that have the taste of defeat for our land have become intolerable. Let’s think about the still massive health emigration, with a cost of more than 252 million euros, the lack of insurance of Essential Levels of Assistance, the ineffective emergency response system, which does not respect the times of rescue in urban and extra-urban areas, for which approximately 28 minutes are recorded for the ambulance to arrive on site after the call, and, again, the fact that Calabria continues to record the lowest level of cancer prevention”. Franz Caruso defines them as “emergency nodes of a regional health system now exhausted and which is in no way able to ensure the right to treatment and health protection”. The Mayor’s message ends with a final comment that the citizen himself defined as “our mantra of recent times and that we address, once again, to the President of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto, hoping that this umpteenth appeal does not fall, once again, on deaf ears: do it where you want, but do it! It is no longer the time for tactics and strategies – explains Franz Caruso – Let us seriously begin the construction of the new Hospital. The community is asking us, the people are asking us, the sick who suffer and deserve great consideration are asking us and we, as heads of institutions, have the duty to follow up on these expectations. There is not a minute to lose!