Doctors attacked, Fsp Police: “We need permanent positions and officers in hospitals 24 hours a day, but there are not enough men on duty”

"The very serious acts of violence that are being recorded with alarming frequency against healthcare workers would certainly find a valid response in the fixed and constant presence of law enforcement in hospitals, in the so-called 'fixed positions' of Police that the President of the Tuscany Region, Enrico Rossi, also mentioned when speaking on the subject. But unfortunately the compression of certain services is the unfortunate consequence of the shortages that our staff suffer from, which continue to grow, and which are destined to increase when in the coming years tens of thousands of police officers leave the service without a serious possibility that they will be filled by an equal number of hires".   

This is what Valter Mazzetti, Secretary General of the Fsp Polizia di Stato, states regarding the serious news of attacks and criminal acts committed against doctors, personnel, equipment and health facilities that have occurred in recent weeks.

"It is all too obvious - Mazzetti reasons - that in a context in which the staff is not numerically sufficient, perhaps it is preferable to send an extra man on the street, and slowly reduce other services, in some cases to the point of disappearing altogether. Yet the presence of the police in certain places that offer services, and which currently record phenomena of very serious barbarism, is today literally necessary, because if an agitated person arrives who wants to beat up a doctor or a criminal who wants to seize an ambulance, only the police know and can intervene adequately. As we have been saying for some time - he concludes -, it is time to seriously establish what is most important to guarantee citizens, and in this case it is also a question of protecting their right to health, which is so closely connected to safety. This has a cost, 365 days a year, that must be sustained if we want to maintain and ensure a certain standard of safety for the community, also in order to avoid grueling double and triple shifts, overtime not paid for on time and underpaid, and the compression of rights that undermines the professional dignity of women and men in uniform".