The Italian village forbids its inhabitants from getting sick

A small Italian village forbade its residents from getting seriously ill.

People living in Belcastro “are ordered to avoid contracting diseases that may require emergency medical attention,” local mayor Antonio Torchia said in a decree.

Belcastro is located in the southern region of Calabria – one of the poorest in Italy.

Torchia said the move was an “apparently humorous provocation” but had more effect than the emergency notices he sent to regional authorities to highlight the shortcomings of the local health system.

About half of Belcastro's 1,200 residents are over 65 and the nearest emergency department (A&E) is more than 45 kilometers (28 miles) away, the mayor said.

He added that A&E was only accessible by road with a speed limit of 30 km/h (18 mph).

The on-call doctor in the village is also only open sporadically and does not offer coverage on weekends, holidays or out of hours.

Torchia told Italian television that it was hard to “feel safe when you know that if you need help, your only hope is to get to (A&E) in time” – and that the roads were almost “more of a risk than every disease”.

As part of the decree, residents were also ordered to “not engage in behavior that could be harmful and avoid domestic accidents” and “not to leave the house too often, travel or play sports and (instead) rest for most of the time”.

It is unclear how these new rules will be implemented, if at all.

The sparsely populated region of Calabria – the tip of Italy's boot – is one of the poorest in the country.

Political mismanagement and mafia interference destroyed its health system, which was placed under special administration by the central government almost 15 years ago.

Rome-appointed commissioners have struggled to deal with the huge levels of debt facing hospitals, meaning Calabrians remain crippled by severe shortages of medical staff and beds, as well as endless waiting lists.

Eighteen of the region's hospitals have closed since 2009.

As a result, almost half of Calabria's nearly two million inhabitants seek medical care outside the region.

In 2022 it was announced that Cuba will send 497 doctors to the Italian region for three years to work in various medical facilities. Regional governor Roberto Occiuto said last year that these doctors had “saved” Calabria's hospitals.

Belcastro residents told local media that Mayor Torchia “did the right thing by shining a light on the problem” and that the decision would “shock the conscience”.

“He has used a provocative decree to draw attention to a serious problem,” one man said.