Oddities

Italian village bans seriously ill residents

TB (summary) January 8, 2025 12:14

Mayor Antonio Torchia has issued a decree banning residents of the village of Belcastro, in the Calabria region of Italy, from being seriously ill.

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Belcastro village, Italy, has a population of about 1,200 people.

BBC (UK) quoted the content of the decree issued by Mayor Antonio Torchia asking people in the village of Belcastro, in the southern Calabria region of Italy, to "avoid contracting diseases that require urgent medical assistance".

Mayor Torchia admitted the move was clearly a “humorous provocation”, but it was far more effective than the urgent notices he sent to local authorities highlighting the shortcomings of the region’s health system.

Calabria is one of Italy’s poorest regions. About half of Belcastro’s 1,200 residents are over 65, and the nearest emergency department is more than 45 kilometers away. Torchia added that the department can only be reached via a road with a 30-kph speed limit.

The village's on-call clinic is also open sporadically and does not operate on weekends, holidays or after hours. Mr Torchia told local television that it is difficult to "feel safe when you need help, the only hope is to get to the emergency department on time".

As part of the decree, residents are also asked to refrain from engaging in potentially harmful activities and avoid household accidents, and not to leave the house too often, travel or play sports, but instead rest.

It is not yet clear how these new rules will be enforced.

For their part, residents of Belcastro told local media that Mayor Torchia did the right thing by bringing the issue to light. According to them, Torchia used the decree to draw attention to a serious problem.

In Italy's less economically developed south, the public health system has been neglected for years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, with budget cuts forcing dozens of hospitals to close.

Mafia and corruption have also taken their toll. Eighteen hospitals in the region have closed since 2009. As a result, nearly half of Calabria’s nearly 2 million residents are forced to seek medical care outside the region.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also caused many health workers to leave. The Guardian (UK) reported in January 2024 that more than 11,000 Italian health workers had left the public system since 2021.

To address the problem, the Calabrian government has called on Cuba for assistance. Nearly 500 Cuban medical staff, covering a wide range of specialties, are now spread across hospitals in the Calabria region.

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Italian village bans seriously ill residents