Italy’s former PM and head of the 5-Star Movement (M5S), Giuseppe Conte, criticised the medical system, accusing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government of failing to fulfil promises.
He quoted Giuseppe Pasqualone, director of Foggia’s Policlinico Riuniti Hospital, as speaking out after three attacks at the hospital in a few days.
If we continue like this, we will end up closing the emergency department because we we won’t have any doctors, nurses or health workers left.
Conte stated that doctors, nurses, and all health care workers were “the lowest of the lows.”
“[They are] squeezed in the ward, constantly exposed to risks to their safety and to the exasperation of the citizens over the situation in our health care system.”
He also accused the Meloni government of failing to keep 2020 promises not to cut health care funding and incentivising low-paid doctors and nurses “forced to work exhausting shifts.”
After decades of cuts, we had brought Italy back above the EU average in health spending, raised staff allowances, and allocated over €15 billion in the PNRR to the health mission. Then came this government with scissor hands. We are the last country in the G7 in per capita health spending. Starting from this budget maneuver we must say it again, forcefully. NEVER AGAIN.
The former prime minister had previously criticised Meloni for her government’s health policy.
