Cagliari's Local Health Authority denied a cot: "It's not our responsibility to provide it." The Metropolitan City failed to provide a healthcare worker for the necessary hours: "A little more than half is sufficient," the authorities argued. The victim of this system is a 15-year-old student, enrolled in the first year of a high school in the Cagliari area. A boy with a severe disability who simply wanted to go to school. To allow him to do so, his parents had to wage a war against the bureaucracy of the public sector in court, enlisting the help of lawyer Riccardo Caboni. Despite several victorious battles along the way, a solution was only found on March 13th. Late, too late, even for the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) judges. They ordered the Local Health Authority and the Metropolitan City to pay damages. Because the boy and his parents were right: the authorities could not deny their competence to resolve the problem; they did so too late. And now the documents have been sent from Piazza del Carmine to the Court of Auditors.
The first to be called into question was the Metropolitan City of Cagliari, which denied "its authority to provide the prescribed aids (a lift and a cot)," deemed necessary to allow the child to attend school safely. It also "communicated that the request for non-educational school support through the OSS was 'allowed' for 16 hours per week, instead of the 24 required in the Individualized Education Plan." The social health worker was needed to assist the fifteen-year-old with his various needs. The measures were appealed. And the Cagliari Local Health Authority was called into question: the health authority, in essence, maintained that it was only competent to provide the cot and lift for use at home (while still declaring that it had them available). The Metropolitan City was responsible for the school. A buck-passing of responsibility ensued, with lawyer Caboni attempting to resolve the issue. And he succeeded in October last year, when the first ordinance was issued, giving the blame game to public agencies. It was discovered that a crib was available at the school, but it needed to be tested. And a caregiver certainly needed to be made available 24 hours a week (and not 16, which was the limit set by the Metropolitan City) because it was necessary to ensure "assistance for basic independence, nutrition, and personal hygiene, and therefore constitutes a prerequisite for the child with disabilities' simple attendance at school."
Solved? Not at all. It turned out that the cot available to the school, while the Local Health Authority (ASL) continued to refuse to supply it, couldn't be tested: "It is not adequate for safety purposes," wrote the technician sent to carry out the inspections. So here comes another order: in December, the Local Health Authority (ASL) was ordered by the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) to supply the cot and lift because, it had been established, the supply was its responsibility. It was supposed to do so within ten days. Instead, it only did so in mid-March. Internal delays, apparently. But someone was finally called to pay for it.
The Local Health Authority (ASL) and the Metropolitan City were ordered to pay €1,300 in damages for each month of school the boy was forced to miss: €7,800 in total. This sum appears symbolic, given the inconvenience he suffered. The Local Health Authority must pay its share for all months, and the Metropolitan City must pay for the first two months in which it refused to provide the requested hours of care. Additionally, there are legal fees: €5,000.
How will the year go for the boy? He might not lose it. Last year, however, he had to withdraw: there wasn't a proper bathroom for him at school.