Calabria, Zuccatelli resigns as commissioner after a phone call with Minister Speranza

Giuseppe Zuccatelli leaves. Before you even start putting your hand to Calabrian healthcare, the commissioner ad acta, named just a week ago after the case Saverio Cotticelli, takes a step back after an interview with the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza. While appeals for the government to appoint Gino Strada are more and more and unite the majority, the newly appointed had distanced himself from his sentences of last May against the masks and declared of “still be without an appointment decree“. That will never come: Zuccatelli in fact has resigned from office never formalized, in addition to the previous ones as commissioner ofHospital of Catanzaro he was born in Mater Domini University Polyclinic, always in Catanzaro. “With the same speed with which I accepted, I resign at the request of Minister Hope for respect that I have and have always had for institutions “. Not only the 5 stars had downloaded it in the last few hours, but also Matteo Renzi e Leu, a party for which Zuccatelli was a candidate in 2018 and to which the chosen commissioner is considered very close. The government is now working on the new appointment. Among the names, in addition to that of Strada, there are also rumors of the former rector of La Sapienza University Eugenio Gaudio, doctor and Calabrian.

Zuccatelli had never spoken since the announcement of the appointment (about a week ago). In the morning he had decided to break the silence with an interview with Tgr Rai Calabria, denouncing that he “has not yet received the appointment decree”: a passage that had left the deliveries pending with his predecessor Cotticelli. So while Gino Strada he complains of having been contacted by the government (and by the prime minister himself Giuseppe Conte), but of not having had formal proposals yet, the situation of health management in Calabria is still paralyzed. The impasse seems to have been released after a phone call from Minister Speranza, given that Zuccatelli had announced: “Me I do not resign spontaneously from the position for which I was designated, but if I am asked by the minister I am willing to do so ”.

Still at the Tgr Calabria, Zuccatelli had also spoken of the controversies concerning him. In this regard, he said, the video in which he said that masks are not needed and that to get infected you need a kiss with the tongue for a quarter of an hour is “definitely nonsense“. But he also acquitted himself: “At that time we were in the first phase of the pandemic”, he said without however recalling that the statements date back to May and therefore not even at the beginning of the spread of the infections. “I’m not a denier”, the Commissioner reiterated, “and there is no doubt that the masks I’m indispensable, as are maintaining distance and frequent hand washing. What I’m wondering, however, is why that video was released right after my nomination. However, I’m not going to be martyred for a 20-second video. Just as I am not going to be described in a comic key “. Zuccatelli, however, did not explain another slip in which he became the protagonist not in May, but not later than Friday when a request for clarification from a correspondent of Title V (the program of Rai3 who had already been “responsible” for the expulsion of his predecessor, Saverio Cotticelli) had answered on Whatsapp with a link that sent to the right-wing nationalist site Imolaoggi which reported a controversial study against masks.

Today the leader of Italy Viva Matteo Renzi: “If Gino Strada is really available to be commissioner for health in Calabria – he wrote on Facebook – the prime minister and the minister of health can do only one thing to remedy the Cotticelli-Zuccatelli mess: sign today the appointment of Gino Strada as commissioner for health in Calabria. Physically accompany him to Catanzaro. And give him all the powers ”. According to Renzi it is also necessary to give freedom of action to the founder of Emergency: “Calabrian health it is in conditions that cannot be described: giving Gino Strada carte blanche is not the solution. But it’s a great start. Because Strada is a man who doesn’t look anyone in the face: he looks everyone in the eye, but doesn’t look anyone in the face. And for Calabria we need such a person. Immediately”. But also for the senator from Leu Loredana De Petris, a member of the party believed to be close to Zuccatelli, asked for a position from the executive: “The government must now break the delay and immediately grasp the willingness confirmed by Strada to accept the post of extraordinary Commissioner of Calabria. It would thus give a strong and powerful signal of change. Any different outcome would be unacceptable and incomprehensible for everyone and in particular for the inhabitants of Calabria ”. The national spokesman of the Italian Left joined De Petris Nicola Fratoianni: “I said it immediately and today I repeat it. The appointment of Zuccatelli in Calabria is a mistake that should have been remedied. Now we discover that Gino Strada has given his availability by asking for a simple simple thing: not to be the subject of a facade operation and to have a clear mandate. What is the government waiting for? Name it right away“.

The M5s president of the Anti-Mafia commission also returned to the appointment Nicola Morra: “Even just mentioning the name of Gino Strada for Calabria has already produced a small, big, huge change,” he said. “Politicians from often opposing sides and journalists from newspapers with opposing editorial lines are united for the first time: they are all asking that the Prime Minister appoint him as Calabrian Health Commissioner. Gino Strada’s is a name that unites. Because he is a competent person and free from party schemes. Because over the years it has become a symbol of an Italy that puts values ​​before profits. His appointment would not serve anyone’s private interests. Only those, legitimate because constitutionally to be guaranteed, of the Calabrians ”.

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