Lycia Casali
Genoa – Accused of prescribing too many drugs, and too expensive, to his elderly patients. After thirty-five years of honorable career, Dr. Sergio Masi, family doctor with practice in Marassi, will have to report to the Liguria Region and the Local Health Authority who accused him of excessive pharmaceutical spending: «They'll put me under pressure because I prescribed medicines that were too expensive - he explains to Secolo XIX - too bad they're also the most recent and most effective. I'm starting to think that people's health doesn't count for the Region, only money"
Investigations that are born to discover scams or big waste, which is certainly not the case for the family doctor who does not want to agree to prescribing cheaper, and according to him less useful, medicines to his patients: «The Region she would be happy – she smiles – the sick are decidedly less so. Yet in this way I risk a fine proportional to what they consider the damage suffered which can range from a few thousand euros up to 300 thousand euros, far more than he has received from the ASL in 35 years of honorable career. I also risk being suspended from work, my reason for living".
The doctor is embittered, as can be easily understood by the sign in the waiting room of his study in which he asks for the solidarity of the patients on the occasion of his hearing: "In a year and a half I will retire - he concludes - of course I did not expect a medal but neither did I expect kicks in the ass".
June 26, 2013 –
