Baveno, crisis solved: the thousand without a doctor will have assistance – La Stampa

Baveno has found a new family doctor. This overcomes the problem that the town has been struggling with for months, with over a thousand citizens left without assistance out of a population of less than five thousand.

With the shortage of qualified professionals willing to compete for positions in Verbano Cusio Ossola, it had not been possible to find someone to replace Giuseppe Frisardi. A large number of Bavenesi in recent months have had to go – by appointment – to the health center in the Pallanza health district, where the ASL has made two medical guard operators available for assistance.

The serious criticality should soon be overcome with the entry into service of the doctor Massimo Milani. Until now she has worked in the province of Varese, but has a house in the area and has participated in the regional tender for the coverage of “shortage areas”, with the obligation to open a clinic in Gignese, where in the meantime Dr. Olga Gofman has taken over, receiving in the municipal spaces.

“This is great news for us,” commented the mayor of Baveno Alessandro Monti. The doctor should initially receive patients in the office of the colleague he is replacing, and then move to the one at the Casa dell’Annuiano, which is currently being renovated.

«The works will be finished by June and the municipal clinic will be available again» continues Monti, who has acted as spokesperson for the problem that affects many other mayors of Verbano and last September 9th had managed to have the regional health councilor Federico Riboldi in the town hall. On that occasion the general director of the ASL Chiara Serpierti had illustrated the agreement signed with the trade unions of general practitioners to deal with over 7,800 citizens of Verbano “orphaned” by a family doctor.

With the agreement, the ASL pays as occasional services for visits, prescriptions, certificates, and procedures carried out by family doctors in practice for residents in the VCO who are not covered by their health insurance, but who do not have a trusted doctor due to the lack of generational turnover.

In Verbano there are 31 family doctors and last week 11 of them signed the agreement for extra work. The mayor of Verbania Giandomenico Albertella, also on behalf of colleagues who are contacted daily by families without a doctor, had asked for more precise information on the matter.

The ASL had committed to providing the mayors with a vademecum with names, contacts, and access methods to their clinics, which however has not yet been drawn up.

The Case of Cannobio
In addition to Baveno, the ASL VCO has managed to provide a new doctor to Cannobio, with the assignment of the role to Stefano Tommasi who will go to help his colleagues at the Medical Center, the first Piedmontese experiment in group medicine but in the last two years in great difficulty in guaranteeing primary care to the inhabitants of the sub-district which also includes the towns of the Cannobina valley.