«Pensions in Sardinia are 17 percent lower than the national average and the living and health conditions of Sardinian pensioners are strongly influenced by the inadequacy of the social welfare network and, more generally, of the regional health system».
The "photograph" of the situation on the island is from the new secretary of the Spi Cgil Sardinia Giacomo Migheli, elected today by the general assembly meeting in Cagliari in the presence of the general secretary of the national Spi Cgil Tania Scacchetti and the national secretary Stefano Landini, as well as the CGIL Sardinia secretary Fausto Durante.
Giacomo Migheli - seventy years old and a life spent in the union at the various levels of the category he belongs to, Filctem - takes over the baton from Marco Grecu , who has led the CGIL pensioners for the last eight years, and was already a member of the regional secretariat with the role of organizer.
He inherits the leadership of a category with 82,518 members who have, as a point of reference, a network branched out in every part of the island, with over 100 offices and leagues.
In his "programmatic" speech Migheli outlined the reality that Sardinian pensioners face, starting with the many critical issues to be resolved, the starting point of his mandate: «If we add up all the types of pension allowance - said the secretary - the amount monthly average, in January 2023, is 840 euros, a sum lower than the Italian average of 17%" . And again: «In detail, according to INPS 2023 data, the pensions paid in Sardinia are a total of 471,513, of which 313,280 are disability, old age and survivors' pensions and the other welfare ones. The average amounts are 1,225 euros for old age benefits, 719 for disability benefits and 670 for survivors. The average amount of the remaining 158,233 welfare pensions (social allowances and civil disability) is 485 euros".
A "not rosy" picture therefore, which adds to the many difficulties that pensioners experience every day: "To give just one example, today booking a medical visit through the health service is almost impossible because the waiting lists are unsustainable", he said Migheli, underlining that, not surprisingly, the CGIL at all levels calls for the strengthening of public health.
«It is important - added the secretary - to invest in community homes, in telemedicine, in home care, in local social and health services, but it is essential, above all, to reorganize local medicine, close to the territory and to the needs of the people who live there."
And speaking of territory and closeness to people, Migheli finally underlined the nature of the pensioners' union as a "proximity union", present in small as well as large centres, to grasp the needs of citizens where they reside: "The territory - has concluded - represents the center of gravity of people's lives around which the social protection system must be reorganized".
(Unioneonline/lf)