Death and Life in Italy

international | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday June 11, 2008 22:52 by Lantern

Italian deaths and Rom lives

Accusations of homicides and grevious bodily harm in private hospitals in Milan. Nine workplace deaths in one day and harrassment of Rom in Milan and Rome. All this in the past week in Italy

Italy: Italian Deaths and Rom Lives
Three doctors are in prison in Milan accused of the murder of 5 patients, who underwent unnecessary operations, of grave bodily harm to another 86 and of claiming state health funding for a minimum of 2.5 million euros. There are another 20 suspect deaths in the St Rita private clinic in Milan and another 10 private clinics are under investigation.
There were 9 workplace deaths today. Six workmen died in a cleaning plant in Sicily and there were three other workplace deaths: one in Udine, the second when a railwayman was accidently killed while working on the on the new Genoa-Ventimiglia tract. In the third a construction worker fell from scaffolding while painting the outside of a house in Sardinia. The total number of workplace deaths in Italy this year now stands at 469.
Meanwhile the Rom have not been having an easy life in Italy over the past week. In Milan a census of nomads was carried out and at 5.30 in the morning with sirens blaring police surrounded the Milan City Council authorized Camp for Nomads comprising 4 wooden houses, caravans and shacks. Name, nationality, details of job and family were registered so as to identify Rom with the right to remain in Italy. The 40-odd adults stood in silence, humiliation and fear, especially those who had survived WWII camps in Italy and elsewhere as they presented identity papers which were then photocopied. One family, the Bezzecchis had come to Italy from Slovenia in 1943. University researcher Giorgio Bezzecchi, 47 years old, said ”everybody should hear about what happened here this morning. My grandfather was killed in Birkenau and my father managed to survive Tossicia”.
Teachers at the "Martinengo-Alvaro" state school in Milan wrote to inform the government that about 30 Rom children were being insulted (“Gypsy filth”), chased and terrorized outside school and a convent day-centre where they went for after-school activities. The letter mentioned the children’s fear, anguish and profound distress and said that several children had already stopped attending school.
Last Friday, in the Testaccio area of Rome an unauthorized nomad camp with 32 caravans and about 100 Sinti inhabitants, 40 of whom are minors, was ordered to break up and move within the hour under threat of arrest while the children were at school. Camp spokesman Aldo Udorovic declared “We are Italian citizens” . The nomads eventually moved to a temporary campsite on Saturday where water was laid on on Sunday.