In the last three years, 13% of corruption episodes concerned the healthcare sector and in particular the supply of drugs, medical equipment and cleaning services. And 8% of the 430 offenses reported to Anac, the anti-corruption authority, in the first six months of 2019 by whistleblowers, were attributable to the health sector: irregular appointments, contracts and hospitalizations, mismanagement of hospital wards or branch structures, 
"medical malpractice", false invalidity, electoral favors in exchange for medical services.
A picture that risks worsening with the Covid emergency, also due to the lack of transparency on procurement. This was reported by the dossier “InSanità. The impact of corruption on our health” created by Libera and its magazine Lavialibera and presented yesterday on the occasion of the Day Against Corruption.
According to the report, which refers to the data from the hip, from the beginning of the pandemic to last November 17, more than 14 billion euros have been tendered to address the health crisis, for the massive purchase of services and supplies, from masks at school desks, through extraordinary procedures.
But the contracting authorities only communicated amounts awarded for 5.55 billion. “For beyond the 60% nothing is known. In other words, it is not known whether they were provided or not, in what form, for what purpose. In a nutshell, there is no trace of it”.
Furthermore, the report always points out, there are mask supply assignments "presented in about one case on two various types of criticality". In 25% of the cases the delivery times were not respected and in 5% the contractors were found to lack the necessary requirements. The other critical issues concerned the quality of the supply (8 out of 52), and the quantities (7 out of 52).
Only in 7 cases out of 311 was there recourse to the application of penalties or contractual terminations.
"This means – underlined Libera in the document – that in 97.5% of cases, despite the presence of obvious anomalies in the characteristics or timing of supplies by entrepreneurs, public bodies were unable to detect them or ignored them".
“The scenario offered by this dossier – commented the president of Libera, Father Luigi Ciotti – that is, on the price paid in terms of lives not saved due to the idolatry of money and profit, it is only a confirmation of how Covid-19 has found fertile ground in two other historical viruses that have never been dealt with enough . I am obviously speaking of corruption and the mafias, the main parasites of the common good”.
An invitation to the "maximum vigilance" on the reconstruction that will follow the pandemic comes from the vice president of the CSM David Ermini, among the many participants in the "Virus della legalità", the online marathon on corruption organized by the De Sanctis Foundation and curated by Mauro Pama, national guarantor of persons deprived of their liberty.
Anti-Mafia 2000 – 10 December 2020 – Source: HANDLE
Related news: InHealthcare. The impact of corruption on our health. File
