A hundred people gathered in front of the hospital in Gallarate this morning, Saturday December 11th, to ask the Lombardy Region to be involved in the choices of territorial medicine: many volunteers, sick people and their families from the local associations Aspi Insubria, Aisla, Alzheimer association, Aacssm and Avulss responded to the appeal.
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“Today we do not find the health needs in this hospital, and it is the first desire that moved us to manifest”, he said. Giulia Quaglin of Aspi Insubria (Parkinson association) of Cassano Magnago, “We found excellence in our territory and now no, we are afraid: we see that medicine has shifted to the individual and not to the community”.
If in the midst of the emergency phase due to Covid-19, rehabilitation has failed or has been fragmented, “now Covid cannot be an excuse for the downsizing and zeroing of services. In any case, there is a need to maintain essential services for the health of the community, even while waiting for the time of a new hospital “.
Beware of chronicity
The major problem encountered by the volunteers and families of the associations that deal with the seriously ill is that the chronicity is “left on the sidelines”Quaglin continued: “Medicine, focused on the individual, deals only with the acute and territorial health is forgotten.”
Hence the request for participation at the top management of the Lombardy Region: «We want to be involved and give voice to the need to take care of the community, to be able to accompany the frailty and people with the concreteness of care. We need to rediscover our existence as associations: we cannot exist without a territory that does not listen to us. We are in solidarity with the hospital and the doctors, but the institutions must realize that the line must be changed, because we associations must continue to be proactive and give answers ».
– Giulia Quaglin
The crux of their dissent is not thesingle hospital – “For a hospital of excellence there is a need for one to move to Busto Arsizio”, Quaglin specified -, but the fragmentation of local healthcare.
«What happens to the Gallarate hospital? Because for a chronic, daily need, one cannot move to the single hospital. What if we don’t have a reference in the area where we send people? This worries us. We believe that single hospital is useful but we don’t understand our role».
This morning’s well-attended event is only the first step of the associations, which hope to be involved by the Lombardy Region: “Surely we will not stop after today, this is only the first step”.
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