The hospitalization fees for Alzheimer’s patients must not weigh on the patients or their families, but are paid by the health fund, first national, now regional.
“A very important sentence, which conforms to those of the Cassation and the Court of Appeal of Milan of 17 May 2019 and to those oettnuet in Foggia (n. 11537/2020) and Monza (n. 617/17), for which when there is a close correlation between assistance and health services, even the former are paid by the National Health Service and cannot, however, be made to pay to the sick and their relatives “, comments the Parmesan lawyer Giovanni Franchi, president of Konsumer, after the decision of the court of Florence on the case of a granddaughter who challenged the injunction for payment issued by the facility where her grandmother was hospitalized.
Therefore, the gratuitousness of health care of social importance for Alzheimer’s patients has been sanctioned. “When there is a close correlation between assistance and health services, even the former must be paid for by the National Health Service” reiterates Franchi, lawyer of Konsumer Italy.
The sentence of the Court of Florence in relation to hospitalization fees in the Rsa and in the affiliated structures paid by relatives of Alzheimer’s patients is also told today from the Tuscan edition of Repubblica.
The dispute was between the granddaughter of a person suffering from Alzheimer’s, who had received an injunction obtained from a public service company in Florence, which manages the RSA facility in which the grandmother was hospitalized, for the payment of several hospitalization fees for a total of almost 19 thousand euros plus interest and expenses. This also on the basis of the hospitalization contract, by signing which the granddaughter had undertaken to pay the monthly amounts owed by her grandmother.
The Court of Florence, with a sentence of 29 December 2020, revoked the injunction, declaring it null and void pursuant to art. 1418 of the Italian Civil Code, the contract containing the commitment assumed by the niece and sentenced the public company of Personal Services Florence Montedomini to the return of the hospitalization fees paid up to that moment, equal to 7,767.05 euros, plus interest and legal expenses.
For that judge, the rule to refer to is the Dpcm February 14, 2001, for which social and health services with high health integration and health care services of social relevance must be considered free for the patient and his family members, as they are provided and paid for by the Health Fund. National (now Regional).
And, since the documentation produced by the granddaughter showed that “the services provided to the grandmother during the hospitalization period fell within the scope of health care with social relevance or other health integration, as they were included in a rehabilitation program aimed at removing degenerative outcomes of patrology “, the woman should not have paid anything.
Furthermore, adds Franchi, “there is another consequence deriving from the sentence: if the expenses are borne by the NHS, everything that has been paid to the RSA up to now must be reimbursed by the latter, with the interest accrued in the meantime. . The same can then retaliate with the health service “.
– .
