«The competitions? They are a legal obligation. With the Company Act adopted in January 2023, Arnas Brotzu committed to filling the vacant roles quickly. A process that began in 2022 with the appointment of two directors of a complex structure and never stopped." Thus the general director of the hospital, Agnese Foddis, responds to the controversy of recent days on the particularly "hot" period for the appointments of head doctors, seventeen in total.
Some places have already been assigned, others are in the running. The departments involved are for example Businco Breast Surgery, General Oncology Surgery, San Michele General and Emergency Surgery, Pediatric Cardiology, Oncology Radiology, Ophthalmology, Urology, Medical Oncology, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
«All services work better if there is a head to coordinate them, and in healthcare the concept is even more true. This is why facility directors must be appointed, which is why - if you don't do so - you receive criticism from staff, unions, public opinion and the press. While understanding that the electoral campaign for the Regional elections is underway, and respecting all political positions, Arnas Brotzu continues to do what it decided in January 2023: to make its hospital departments efficient again by appointing directors and avoiding resort to temporary appointments", underlines Foddis in a note. "We have chosen not to paralyze Arnas while awaiting the outcome of the elections, which have no bearing on healthcare choices to guarantee service to the population."
After an article published last January 31st in L'Unione Sarda, with the list of selections, the group leader of the Progressists in the Regional Council Francesco Agus, member of the Health commission, spoke on the topic: «Most of the departments of the Arnas Brotzu have been guided in recent years by acting principals. I do not deny that these roles, although precarious, have caused us to notice, during the legislature, repercussions on the organization of the departments themselves, and therefore on the clinical activity, as well as on the satisfaction of the medical, nursing, healthcare and administrative staff. Here we are witnessing the turning point in the midst of the electoral campaign: the company seems to have transformed into a "competition factory".
Even the leader of the Democratic Party Gianfranco Ganau underlined that «we are witnessing, one could say, almost a market of appointments, positions and calls for competitions for administrative officers such as have never been seen in five years of legislature. Already in recent months we have witnessed the assignment of tasks and organizational positions that are not always appropriate at the end of the legislature even for those who have benefited from them, but doing so in the heat of the regional election campaign goes much further, to the limits of legality and correctness. Which risks raising appeals."
DG Foddis explains that «for the appointments of directors of a complex structure, Arnas Brotzu employs external commissions whose members are drawn from a national list, in full transparency. And with the assignment of these tasks, the use of acting directors is put to an end, who can remain in office for a maximum of 18 months, as established by the National Labor Contract".