Wasteful healthcare: Calabria's "Heart Center," completed in 2012, is still inactive.

HEART CENTER REGGIO CALABRIA –

It was supposed to be a health centre of excellence for the care of heart patients: it is a pity that, despite the contractor having delivered the structure to the ASP on 22 December 2012, Even today, the "Heart Center" of the United Hospitals of Reggio Calabria remains closed.

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HEART CENTER: A WASTE OF PUBLIC MONEY –

A total of 18 million Euros were spent on the construction of what can be considered one of the health facilities most avant-garde in Europe.

The "Heart Center" is made up of two operating rooms, one of which is a hybrid, one of the few in the South and equipped with a machine that allows the cardiac surgeon to perform an imaging diagnosis by visualizing even the smallest vessels.

The two operating rooms also include four anesthesia/recovery stations, a nine-bed intensive care unit, and a room that could be used for heart transplants in the future.

Finally, there is the hospitalization block consisting of 10 beds, a multimedia meeting room capable of accommodating up to 50 people and an executive area which houses the cardiac surgery, haemodynamics, electrophysiology secretariats and the head physician's office.

An enormous waste therefore, without taking into account the risk that the machinery, due to their lack of use, could deteriorate or become obsolete.

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WHY IS THE HEART CENTER CLOSED?

But why is this center, which could prove so useful for treating various cardiovascular diseases, closed? A history marked by flawed tenders and appeals, further compounded by the Calabria Region's healthcare deficit recovery plan. As we read on Il Fatto Quotidiano, the Heart Center never came into operation due to the economic constraints imposed by the tough recovery plan from sanitary debt regional law that has prevented the hospital from hiring the doctors and paramedics without whom the facility cannot be fully operational. In practice, the resources for hiring specialized personnel are lacking, but at the same time, the "Centro Cuore" continues to pay the lease payments for its machinery, instalments of as much as 500 thousand euros per month, money to which are added the cost of expensive maintenance of machinery that is never used.

Yet another one waste of public money to which we are now accustomed and yet another all-Italian disgrace to the detriment of taxpayers' health. According to some estimates, The Heart Center would be able to perform between 1200 and 1400 cardiac interventions each year, interventions that patients today are forced to undergo outside the region.

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