Divided. On everything. Thus began and ended the well-attended session of the Regional Council's Health Committee , which called for and consulted President Alessandra Todde, who has held the interim position of Health Director since December. Todde first spoke about paid-for doctors, an option Sardinian hospitals (as has happened elsewhere in Italy) have used to guarantee treatment and care. But given the high costs, this approach has not been available for new recruits this year.
« We are working to identify structural solutions and guarantee the missing shifts , also thanks to the imminent competition for emergency doctors», said Todde who spoke on the subject of token workers in response to a question from the FdI group leader, Paolo Truzzu .
In Sardinia, contracts in the emergency rooms of smaller facilities will expire in phases over the next few days. These are paid-for staff who had been hired to cover less serious cases. White and green. Todde added that " by law, it is not possible to extend contracts or call for a new tender . We are therefore talking with the individual local health authorities to fill the missing shifts. We are also confident about the competition on March 20th for 44 emergency physician positions: 52 applications have been received. We will try to take all (the candidates), even if there are some difficulties. For example, at the Sassari local health authority, twelve applications have been submitted for three positions."
Todde was accompanied by the department's new director general, Thomas Schael . The president-councilor recalled that "in recent weeks, the Regional Council allocated €25 million to pay emergency room allowances (for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025) to staff. We are also analyzing emergency room admissions to understand the flow of patients with Areus and coordinate the emergency management with the individual facilities."
On the island, the last token-operators' contracts expire in June. Therefore, the competitive procedures should be concluded by then. " I'm worried," Todde said, "it's a new context, but I'm still confident . It's clear that the structural solution needs to be accelerated."
There were many interventions. Umberto Ticca (Reformists) asked "if, and if so, which peripheral emergency rooms will close on March 1st, which is just around the corner." Corrado Meloni expressed his "doubt about the real possibility that you've found a solution that won't cause too much damage." Alice Aroni (UDC) asked the president "why she didn't act sooner, given that the deadline for the paid-in doctor tenders was known to everyone." Regarding the feared closures, Todde said that "it's our job to prevent them, but only with the numbers will we understand what actions need to be taken." The new director general, Schael, proposed: " We can consider entering into agreements with other regions that have more doctors than us . In any case, it's clear that the phenomenon of paid-in doctors must end, also because the quality of their work is not that of a permanent one."