A small Italian village has forbidden its residents from getting seriously ill.
People living in Belcastro are “ordered to avoid contracting any disease that may require immediate medical attention,” according to a decree by local mayor Antonio Torchia.
Belcastro is located in the southern region of Calabria – one of the poorest in Italy.
Torchia said the move was “obviously a joking provocation” but that it had more effect than the emergency notices he sent to regional authorities to highlight the shortcomings of the local health system.
About half of Belcastro’s 1,200 residents are over 65 and the nearest emergency department (H&E) is over 45km (28 miles) away, the mayor said.
He added that the ambulance can only be reached by road with a speed limit of 30 kmh (18 mph).
The rural on-call doctor’s office is also only open sporadically and does not offer weekend, holiday or after-hours coverage.
Torchia told Italian TV that it’s hard “to feel safe when you know that if you need help, the only hope is to get there [A&E] on time” – and that the roads were almost “a greater risk than any disease”.
As part of the decree, residents were also ordered “not to engage in behavior that could be harmful and to avoid accidents in the home”, and “not to leave the house too often, travel or play sports, and to [instead] rest most of the time”.
It is unclear how these new rules will be enforced, if at all.
The sparsely populated region of Calabria – the tip of Italy’s boot – is one of the poorest in the country.
Political mismanagement and mafia interference decimated its health system, which was placed under special administration by the central government nearly 15 years ago.
Commissioners appointed by Rome have struggled to tackle the huge debt levels facing hospitals, meaning Calabria remains crippled by severe shortages of medical staff and beds, as well as endless waiting lists.
Eighteen hospitals in the region have been closed since 2009.
As a result, almost half of Calabria’s almost two million inhabitants seek medical help outside the region.
In 2022, it was announced that Cuba would send 497 doctors to the Italian region over three years to work in various medical facilities. Regional governor Roberto Occhiuto said last year that these doctors “saved” hospitals in Calabria.
Belcast residents told local media that Mayor Torchia “did the right thing to shine a light on the issue” and that the decision “will shock the conscience”.
“He used a provocative ordinance to draw attention to a serious problem,” one man said.
