This story, and its integral affirmation of the Italian sense of humour, made me smile and I hope it makes you do so as well.
Belcastro, a small village in the southern region of Calabria, one of Italy’s poorest regions, is home to around 1,200 people (Picture above). The local mayor, Antonio Torchia, has recently banned its residents from becoming seriously ill. People living in Belcastro “are … ordered to avoid contracting any illness that may require emergency medical assistance,” the mayor’s decree states.
Torchia said the move was “obviously a humorous provocation”, but that it was having more of an effect than the urgent notices he had sent to regional authorities to highlight the shortcomings of the local healthcare system.
Around half of Belcastro’s 1,200 residents are over the age of 65 and the nearest Accident & Emergency (A&E) department is over 45km (28 miles) away, the mayor said. He added that the A&E was only reachable by a road with a 30kmh (18mph) speed limit.
The village’s on-call doctor’s surgery is also only open sporadically, and offers no cover during weekends, holidays or after hours.
Torchia told Italian TV that it was hard to “feel safe when you know that if you need assistance, your only hope is to make it to [A&E] on time” – and that the roads were almost “more of a risk than any illness”.
As part of the decree, residents have also been ordered “not to engage in behaviours that may be harmful, to avoid domestic accidents, not to leave the house too often, travel or practice sports, and to rest for the majority of the time”.
The mayor didn’t mention how these new rules will be enforced, if at all, but your imagination can run wild with speculation of how it might be done. All part of the Italian sense of humour!
Political mismanagement and mafia interference have decimated the healthcare system in the area, which was put under special administration from the central government almost 15 years ago. Rome-appointed commissioners have had difficulties tackling the vast levels of debt faced by hospitals, meaning Calabrians remain crippled by a serious lack of medical personnel and beds, as well as interminable waiting lists.
The article I read also reported that Italy’s Calabria region has suffered from two pandemics: Covid and the mafia. Again, tongue-in-cheek humour.
Eighteen of the region’s hospitals have closed since 2009. As a result, almost half of Calabria’s near two million residents seek medical assistance outside the region.
In 2022, it was announced that Cuba would send 497 doctors to Calabria over three years to work in various medical facilities. Regional governor Roberto Occhiuto said last year that these doctors had “saved” Calabria’s hospitals. I have found no evidence of how that happened but it could have something to do with the fact that many local governments in Italy (Comunes) are listed as communist. However, it is a very special, Italian, form of communism that doesn’t have much to do with the traditionally accepted definition of communism.
Belcastro residents told local media that Mayor Torchia had “done the right thing in shining a light on the issue”, and that the decision would “shake consciences”. He has used a provocative decree to attract attention on a serious problem, one man said.
As I said at the beginning, the actions of the mayor are commendable, amusing and, apparently, effective as it reached the newsfeed of BBC World news. Sometimes, humour can achieve far more than any bureaucratic process or, even, political action. It also brings a smile to your face, which can’t be bad either!
