the controversy over the “spontaneous” petition breaks out

“The undersigned Doctors, Directors and Managers of the AOUC Policlinico Bari, intend to formalize the feelings of deep esteem and appreciation for the work of the General Management, the Health Management and the Administrative Management of the Bari Polyclinic, which has always worked in a commendable and impeccable in the interest of the sick, constantly putting their doctors in a position to best express their professionalism at the service of patients and citizens ”. 68 names and surnames follow.

The official defense which has been circulating since the case of legionella exploded in the Chini and Asclepios pavilions, for which they are under investigation for omission of official acts and death as a consequence of another crime the general manager, Giovanni Migliore, the medical director, Matilde Carlucci, the administrative director, Tiziana Di Matteo, the head of departmental public health, Giuseppe Calabrese and the technical area director, Claudio Forte, raised a sea of ​​controversy.

The covid was not enough, for which some departments have been closed and staff quarantined, between the avenues and pavilions of the University Hospital, discontent is cut into slices with a knife. According to the murmur of the leaves of the trees moved by the wind, some of those signatories would have found themselves there without their knowledge, after the fact, when the text had already been published in the local press.

Whether it is a press release that is not really canonical, those who had it in their hands realized it immediately: although it shows the title of the Polyclinic, it does not report a date and it was not conveyed through the official channels of the hospital, so much so that not all newspapers have received it.

The operation does not appear to have achieved the likely desired effect. The names that appear as signatories, immediately ended up in the crosshairs of colleagues and public opinion, not inclined to overlook the situation in which the large hospital is, without forgetting that, in the face of those 68 names, to assist the patients of the 1550 beds approximately located in 32 pavilions over 230 thousand square meters, the medical staff on duty is definitely more, in 2018 they were just under 700 indefinitely.

So who or what is behind this operation that arrives in a situation that is already so delicate and compromised? Asked by telephone, the press office of the Polyclinic, while acknowledging that it is not a fake, confirmed that it was not disclosed by the responsible structure, therefore it is not an institutional communication of the Hospital, but a personal initiative of the professor Francesco Introna, first signatory of the text and whose name appears at the top of the list.

As a busy professional, it is difficult for us to imagine Professor Introna wandering through the avenues and pavilions of the Policlinico, folder and pen in hand, collecting autograph signatures from colleagues, although obviously nothing can be excluded. Why then the text was sent on the hospital letterhead, it is all to be understood, since it is a personal initiative.

The theory then takes shape, always whispered by the leaves of the trees, that the signatures were collected by some trade unionists particularly close to the top under investigation, trade unionists who would have collected the names, not the signatures, even on indications received from the directors of some clinics of the ‘Hospital. In short, a tangled mess, in which some names of unaware professionals would have been improperly spent, in a phase in which, for the sake of patients and the Polyclinic itself, maximum clarity and transparency are needed.

The investigation, meanwhile, continues on its way, we remain at the disposal of Professor Introna, of the University Hospital Policlinico, of each of the 68 who appear as signatories of the statement, or of anyone else who has something to say about it.

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