After approximately forty days from the date of the polls of 25 February 2024, the convocation of the Regional Council, according to the relevant convocation decree, is scheduled for next 9 April and officially marks the beginning of the XVII Legislature of the Sardinia Region.

Beyond the solemnity of the moment, which will be divided between the oath of the Councilors, the communications of President Todde, the oath of the councilors and the election of the President of the Regional Council, probably, to create greater expectations for the near and future future of the 'Isola and its inhabitants, will be the concrete perception of the announced "transition to the operational dimension" (cit. President Alessandra Todde). Among the measures of primary interest, those on health and territorial continuity seem to appear decisive. And certainly the identification of the critical issues appears extremely correct and must be addressed. Even more so, when, reporting the information recently provided by the Ansa Agency, what seems to create greater apprehension is the desistence by a large number of Sardinians from the use of healthcare services due to the reported inefficiency of public structures, the costs private ones, and waiting lists that are too long. These are all problems to be managed with an innovative and creative spirit by a Regional Council that promises to be profoundly reformatory in the active and empirical sense of the term.

Probably, and we understand this, it may not be easy to intervene with the utmost immediacy and efficiency, but it seems necessary to undertake the path of change in the terms announced by the newly elected President. In the meantime, because, probably, the Island, in its geographical complexity, would need a (renewed) project of timely and incisive planning of territorial assistance strictu sensu INTESA. Therefore, why, the crisis of the National Health Service should not lead sic et simpliciter to its abolition, but, on the contrary, should determine the need to prepare somehow extraordinary interventions to strengthen it. Furthermore, because the World Health Organization itself always continues to believe, and especially after the pandemic period, the absolute preponderance of health systems of a universal nature in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Finally, as constantly observed by many parties, because private healthcare systems appear, conversely, as bearers of inequalities and, therefore, at least perceptively speaking, less useful for the community when access to care is not equally guaranteed to all citizens without distinction. Saying it differently, and perhaps more clearly: it is certainly not necessary to bother Lapalisse to understand that in the context of private healthcare systems, the majority of the population could remain excluded from services. Just as it is not necessary to bother Lapalisse again to understand that, since private healthcare has always existed as a parallel measure, fulfilling a function, however important, of a complementary nature, the same, in any case, especially in a reality such as the Sardinian one , cannot in any way act as a substitute for public health. On the other hand, and on a very different level, the age-old problems inherent to the so-called territorial continuity are brought to the attention of President Todde, which, in truth, would have, as in fact it has, the function of ensuring the transport service, via by air or sea, to citizens living in disadvantaged regions of the nation. In effect, it would involve adopting useful measures to determine the removal of any and all obstacles of economic and social importance that prevent the full implementation of the provisions of Article 16 of the Constitution relating to the right to so-called mobility. President Todde, according to local press reports, mentioned a competitive model between companies in the peak months accompanied by an aid system useful for controlling tariffs in times of lower demand. It would seem to be, and in fact it is, a project devoted to maximum concreteness in the contingent moment, and probably perfectible in the next unfolding of the action of the Regional Council in its new subjective composition. In fact, if it is true, as it seems to be true, that the expression "territorial continuity" is intended to denote the ability to ensure easy connections to the peripheral areas of a country or to the islands, however, this although felt need to guarantee certain egalitarian connections, risks clashing, as in fact seems to have happened, with the economic interests of airlines or shipping companies which, indeed, could find themselves forced to abandon the less profitable routes and/or serve them only in periods of greater demand through the imposition of transport prices particularly high, tending to avoid economic losses.

It will perhaps not be superfluous to remember that, on a regulatory level, law 17 May 1999, n. 144, in its article 36 provides, and precisely to guarantee the territorial continuity of the Sardinia region alone and of the smaller islands of Sicily in which there are airports (on the basis of Council Regulation (EEC) no. 2408/92 of 23 July 1992, now repealed and replaced by Regulation (EC) No. 1008/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 September 2008), procedures and contents of the public service obligations for scheduled air services on the routes provided for by the aforementioned legislation. It will probably be necessary to start again from such regulatory bases to innovate in order to prepare a reference regulation that is as organic and functional as the times and needs change.

President Alessandra Todde, from her first statements, appears to have a strong concreteness and active spirit.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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