The mayor of a small town in southern Italy issues an unusual order, "It is forbidden to get sick."
Residents of Belcastro in the southern region of Calabria have been "ordered to avoid falling ill from illnesses that require medical attention, especially emergency care," according to a decree by Mayor Antonio Torchia.
Torchia told local television that while "we accept (the decree) with some irony", it was intended to highlight the lack of access to healthcare in the city.
Belcastro, a town of about 1,300 people, half of whom are elderly, has a health center that is often closed and doctors on duty are not available on weekends, holidays or after hours, the mayor said.
The closure of nearby health centres, as well as the fact that the nearest emergency room is about 45 km away in the town of Catanzaro, made the mayor feel it necessary to "adopt an urgent and urgent act of precautionary nature," he said, as quoted by CNN.
"This is not just a provocation, the ordinance is a cry for help, a way to shed light on an unacceptable situation," Torchia told local newspaper Corriere della Calabria.
In his ordinance, the mayor urges people not to "engage in behaviour that could be harmful and to avoid domestic incidents", as well as "not to leave the house too often, not to travel or play sports and rest most of the time".
It is unclear whether and how the ordinance will be enforced.
The mayor stated that the order is intended to provoke regional authorities and health officials to address the problems. The ordinance will remain in effect until the city's public health center begins regular operations, the mayor said.
"Come and live for a week in our little village and try to feel safe knowing that in the event of a health emergency, the only hope is to get to Catanzaro in time," he said while speaking to local media. "Try it and then tell me if this situation seems acceptable to you."
The sparsely populated Calabria region is one of Italy's poorest and is prone to desertification and brain drain, with many young people moving out of rural communities to live in cities.
Over 75% of Calabria's towns - approximately 320 - currently have fewer than 5,000 inhabitants in 2021, raising fears that some communities could disappear completely without regeneration. Some towns have even begun offering to pay people to live there in an attempt to reverse their declining population trend.
The Mayor of Belcastro knows that many towns face similar problems with access to healthcare.
"I'm a drop in the ocean," Torchia told local TV station LaC News24. "There are 80 municipalities in the province of Catanzaro, and I think most of them suffer from the same problems." | BGNES
