Pistoia, 23 October 2024 – La expiration is set for October 25th. By that date it will be necessary to submit requests to participate in the tenders announced by the Tuscan local health authorities with which the health services that are currently provided under the agreement will be assigned. Without distinction between new or historical realities, but above all without distinction between private structures, non-profit organizations and third sector bodies. The complaint comes from a non-profit organization rooted in Pistoia, the Turati Foundation, which risks having the agreement for all those health services relating to the field of rehabilitation reduced, with cuts in services and personnel, in the two offices of Gavinana and in the center of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation in Viale Adua. President Giancarlo Magni himself put the situation down on paper, with a very detailed letter, sent to the regional councilors of Tuscany and to the regional secretariats of the trade union organizations.
“In the general disinterest – writes the president of the Turati Foundation Giancarlo Magni – the three Tuscan local health authorities are proceeding, for private structures, non-profit organizations and third sector bodies that operate in healthcare, with expressions of interest to assign through tenders those services that they are currently provided under an agreement. Tuscany, currently the only region together with Lombardy, is in practice applying the government rule which implements the European competition directive known as Bolkestein. This rush is not understood unless we are aiming for a reduction in the budget reserved to date for the sector. In this way – we read further in the letter – an equal criterion is adopted for the assignment of services without any reference to objective criteria to evaluate the quality of the services offered. And they put profit and non-profit organizations on the same level by wildly applying the principle of ‘competition’.”
The consequences of all these anomalies, according to Magni, there will be two above all: “In the short term, difficulties in application, appeals and inconveniences in the use of services, in the medium term, the wild restructuring of assistance which is not provided directly by the public, with the disappearance of all those realities that are the fruit of Tuscany’s rich capillary network of closeness and solidarity to the benefit of private multinationals”.
But what will actually happen to the structures that provide services in Pistoia? We talk about it with the director of the Turati Foundation, Maurizio De Scalzi.
“In concrete terms, they are services and jobs are at risk. As a rule, the agreements are renewed every three years: a period of time that also allows us to plan and proceed with investments that improve the offering of services. From what we know, if we proceed with this new model, for the first year (upon renewal of the agreement) we will be guaranteed the maintenance of 70 percent of the initial budget, while the remaining 30 percent will be added up and redistributed among the private entities affiliated on a vast area basis, therefore also including Florence and Empoli. A choice that takes into account neither the needs of the area in which it operates nor the real potential of the various structures. Suffice it to say that in Gavinana we have 48 beds in the Rehabilitation Department, of which approximately 22 remain free and unoccupied annually. This means that we are not only able to satisfy local demand but that we could potentially absorb more”.
Martina Vacca
