Monterotondo – SS Gonfalone, “new” emergency room opens

The renovation, which has also affected, in the tranche already completed, the department of Radiology, has in fact been completed in sharply ahead of schedule in the health plan, launched by the Regional Council in view of the extraordinary Jubilee called by Pope Francis, in which the Monterotondo hospital, the only one in the province among the twelve health facilities of the regional emergency network beneficiary of funding for structural adjustment. Meanwhile, work is proceeding at full speed on the second and third floors of the hospital, scheduled for completion by Nov. 30, at the end of which the complete renovation of the Emergency Department and Radiology will be joined by that of the Medicine, by Long-stay, of the’surgical area including operating rooms and SPDC (Psychiatric Diagnostic and Treatment Service).

“È really a moment of great satisfaction – states the mayor Mauro Alessandri – We are finally leaving behind years of pessimism and controversy, including the completely sterile ones that some felt they had to fuel even in the last months. Although I am not in the habit of accepting thanks for what I believe to be only a duty, I would like to express to President Zingaretti and the regional health care control cabin the gratitude of the municipal administration, the city and the entire territory that in our hospital had, has and will continue to have its natural and priority point of reference, especially in emergencies. Territory which, however, I say with regret, has not always supported our mobilization as it should have, often leaving Monterotondo, its institutions and its civic committees alone in the stubborn, serious, circumstantial struggle to get SS Gonfalone out of the quagmire into which it was driven by Decree 80 passed by the Polverini Junta“.

Four years ago, exactly on September 28 of 2010, in fact, the first rumors began to leak out about possible “reconversions” (de facto closures) of several hospitals in Lazio, including SS Gonfalone in Monterotondo, as part of the regional hospital network reorganization plan (decree 80), wanted by acting commissioner and regional president Renata Polverini. Indiscretions that became certainties two days later, on Sept. 30, when the decree was made official.

There followed years of hard struggle, demonstrations, sit-ins against regional strategies, meetings and hearings with the Region and the general management of the Asl, during which the city institutions, keeping the protest always and in any case within the confines of a composed yet firm and tight dialectic, often in solitude, punctually and circumstantially contested the reliability of the data on the basis of which the “productivity” of the eretino nosocomio was judged unsatisfactory, such as to decree its downgrading and reconversion. Struggle continued until the approval of the Health Operating Plan 2013/15 with which the Zingaretti junta, in August 2014, saved SS Gonfalone from an inglorious end and, subsequently, with only the suppression of the birth point, in the May of this year authorized its renovation and upgrading.

“In these four years – the mayor continues – we have gone from imminent closure to a hospital that will now have a new life, with new rational and functional spaces, renovated in full compliance with the planned timetable, in the sign of that structural and economic rationalization desired by the regional administration, the first fruits of which are beginning to be reaped. Results that in Monterotondo we had been waiting for decades, during which only the intervention of a few benefactors, to whom all our gratitude goes anyway, had allowed at least some maintenance work“

“The operation of the new emergency department will take a few more days – says the adviser delegate for health care Walter Antonini – the time needed to safely transfer equipment and test the functionality of the entire department. We will follow this phase, just as we continue to follow that of the work, with the same attention, in collaboration with the Asl. However, the satisfaction is great.

Four years ago the hospital was about to close, today we have better facilities and new equipment that will greatly improve its efficiency“.