The institutional agreement to build the new university hospital of Cosenza on Unical land, in the municipality of Rende, was signed at the headquarters of the Calabria Region, in Catanzaro: the deed bears the signatures of the president of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto, the rector of the University of Calabria, Nicola Leone, the mayor of Rende, Sandro Principe, and the delegate commissioner for healthcare construction interventions in Calabria, Claudio Moroni. The new hospital in Cosenza, whose construction will cost a total of 349 million euros, will be built in an area adjacent to the University of Calabria.
Occhiuto: “Important result for the entire Region”
In recent days, the Rende municipal council had approved the draft agreement regarding the «Technical-economic feasibility project for the construction of the new hospital in Cosenza». The intervention is causing intense political controversy in Cosenza and Rende, with conflicting positions: among those against the Policlinico in Rende is the mayor of Cosenza, Franz Caruso, who is instead in favor of the original location planned in the Vaglio Lise area, in the capital municipality. «I believe – Occhiuto argued – that this result is important for the whole region because there was already an excellent establishment, the medical faculty of Catanzaro, but evidently it was not enough. If there is a lack of doctors and specialists, there is a need to drain hospitalizations outside the region, therefore passive mobility, perhaps there is a need for more medical faculties and more excellence in medical faculties in Calabria. And this was done thanks to the contribution that the University of Calabria and Rector Leone have given to the region in recent years.”
As for the controversy, Occhiuto observed: «We need to think of a hospital that is also a university hospital and that is close to the place where knowledge is formed and where students study. Cosenza is my city, so imagine if I don’t hold Cosenza in the right regard. But I govern the Region with the attitude of someone who must take responsibility for doing what is right, not just what is convenient with respect to the bell towers. And in the urban area of Cosenza, in Rende, we have a university that is the first in Italy, a medical faculty that is attracting people like Melfi, like Maselli, like Vommaro.”
In turn, Principe observed: «I don’t make controversies that I consider absolutely useless, also because this vision of having the University of Calabria in Rende and then completing the University with the Faculty of Medicine, for those who have followed my battles, is an idea from at least 35 years ago».
For the rector of Unical Leone «everything began with the opening of the medical degree course at the University of Calabria. That was a turning point, because it allowed us to develop a great project – he said – for the relaunch of healthcare which found full consensus and agreement on the part of President Occhiuto. The hospital is a bit like the natural continuation of this path.”