Retired GPs who have resumed service in disadvantaged areas of the Island will have to stop their work immediately . They started visiting patients again this summer, by choice, after the approval of the regional law that allowed them to do so, and now that the Government has challenged the law - even if in theory in the event of an appeal it would remain valid until the verdict of the Constitutional Court - the Local Health Authorities are deciding to block everything anyway . You never know, the general managers might be called to answer for it jointly in the future.
A story between a mess and a joke, which unfortunately fits into a dramatic picture: in Sardinia there are 470 vacant offices (out of just over 1400 overall), which means that around 450 thousand people do not have primary health care, or have it intermittently, a few hours a week, with the Ascot (the extraordinary territorial continuity clinics). Here, to try to plug the gaps a bit, given that many seventy-year-old doctors still want to stay in the game, here is law 12 of 2024, which says that the Health Authorities "are authorized to provide all doctors involved in primary care and continuity of care projects with red prescription pads, and the provision is also applicable to retired doctors who have joined the projects... even with freelance contracts, where complete coverage of primary care is not guaranteed".
Now, the cold shower: the Council of Ministers has rejected the law , with a very long and extremely technical justification, which essentially underlines that «the regional provision has invaded the sphere of exclusive state legislative competence in matters of civil order, which reserves to collective bargaining the regulation of the employment relationship of general practitioners, a matter reserved to the state legislator and by the latter delegated to collective bargaining».
Health Councilor Armando Bartolazzi emphasized: "This measure was created to cover a clear and serious emergency with shortages of general practitioners for thousands of inhabitants in some territories. This is a necessary measure for Sardinia and the challenge seems all the more incomprehensible since the recruitment of retired professionals is planned exclusively on a voluntary basis . In this way the Government violates the right to health of Sardinian citizens, especially those living in the most disadvantaged areas of our Island".
Today the FdI group leader Paolo Truzzu underlines: « The councilor had made a right thing, that is, the recall of retired doctors to service only on a voluntary basis . A rule challenged by the Government, because the possibility of using red prescription pads exceeds regional competences. Let's be clear, governments challenge laws for technical reasons, not political ones. Because they are urged by offices that highlight how some regional rules conflict with national ones. In this case, Minister Calderoli and his offices could have paid a little more attention. But the majority could also have been a little more proactive with the government ».