"Private" management of waiting lists, head doctor arrested

A “private” management of waiting lists was allegedly implemented in the ophthalmology department of the Renato Dulbecco University Hospital in Catanzaro . This is the accusation brought against the head physician Vincenzo Scorcia , 48, placed under house arrest by the finance police of the Provincial Command of Catanzaro together with the secretary of a private practice, Maria Battaglia (50), in execution of an order of the investigating judge. The two are being investigated for criminal association, embezzlement, extortion, aggravated fraud and interruption of public service as well as, the doctor, for ideological falsehood and self-laundering. There are 12 people under investigation in total.

At the same time, the financial police carried out a preventive seizure against five of the suspects, aimed at confiscating, of money and goods with a value equal to the profit of the crimes they were charged with, amounting to 984,762.23 euros. The investigations, conducted by the investigators of the Public Spending Protection Group of the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Catanzaro, would have allowed them to outline the existence and operation of a criminal association - composed of two medical directors of the Ophthalmology department and a nurse from the Ophthalmology clinic of the University Hospital of Catanzaro as well as the secretary of the private practice where one of the doctors was illegally carrying out freelance professional activities - dedicated to the commission of various crimes functional to the illicit management of waiting list procedures.

According to the prosecution, some doctors working at the hospital would have performed surgical operations on patients who had been previously visited for a fee, while carrying out private extra-institutional activity, guaranteeing them “privileged” treatment compared to outpatients who had observed the provisions for access to public health services and who had been included in the respective waiting lists. In this way, a private system of reservations and services provided free of charge by the hospital would have been fueled.

In some cases, moreover, the Catanzaro Public Prosecutor's Office notes, "the seriousness of the clinical situation encountered and the consequent need to urgently undergo surgical treatment, on whose promptness the preservation of a fundamental physical asset depended, placed the patients in a condition of substantial psychological 'constraint', such as to seriously limit their freedom of self-determination, to the point of agreeing to pay the doctor privately to undergo the operation at the public facility".

With this modus operandi, according to the investigators, a “privatization” of the Ophthalmology department had been determined, “with obvious negative repercussions on the quality of the public service offered, given the dilation of waiting times to access it”. The investigations also revealed that five doctors, despite having opted for an exclusive employment relationship in favor of the public structure, thus ensuring the receipt of the specific emoluments reserved for medical personnel under an exclusive regime, carried out extra-institutional activities in private practices and clinics, also in agreement with the National Health Service, with damage to the University Hospital Trust and to the Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, quantified at 984,762 euros.