Vincenzo Defilippo, president of Federfarma of Catanzaro
Federfarma raises the alarm: here the health sector is in disarray. These are the words of the president, Vincenzo Defilippo, who wanted to take the opportunity of the unfortunate death of a young woman following a cesarean birth in Vibo Valentia, to denounce the serious crisis that pharmaceutical assistance is going through in that area, with important consequences on local pharmacies. "Compelled by more than five months of delays in payments, the pharmacies of the province of Catanzaro have announced a series of tough initiatives, ranging from the reduction, for a few days, of the shops open to indirect assistance," says Defilippo in a note. «Therefore, the citizens of the whole province of Catanzaro will find only the pharmacies on duty open on 6 and 7 September next and after a few days they will have to do without direct pharmaceutical assistance, barring last-minute events. This means that in Catanzaro and its surroundings one will have to forget about being able to collect the usual medicine free of charge from pharmacies, or with the payment of the ticket only, presenting the prescription from the family doctor: citizens will have to pay for all medicines, even those they are normally provided free of charge upon presentation of the normal red prescription from the national health service, to then be reimbursed by the health authority for the price paid".
So concludes Defilippo: «Our fellow citizens probably don't want to know why pharmacies haven't been paid for more than five months, nor on the other hand, it's up to us pharmacists to ascertain it. The fact is that, surely, we can no longer continue to work without receiving due reimbursements from the Catanzaro health authority. On the contrary, such a delay in payments risks bringing the whole system to collapse».
Pharmacist33 – 30 August 2010 – Year 6, Number 142
