News Sunday 21 January 2024
Healthcare The agreement for the sale of Fatebenefratelli to Lifenet will be finalized only in March. Climate of tension among the 447 employees, some doctors are considering changing structure
Luca Meneghel
The friars will leave Erba by the end of January, the agreement for the sale of the structure to Lifenet will be finalized in mid-March and the Fatebenefratelli will then support the new ownership for a few more months.
A new company
Few fixed points in the climate of uncertainty in which the 447 employees of the Erba hospital have been living for months: on January 1st they started working for a new company destined for sale, but no one has yet met the future owners. Some doctors are looking around for safe havens.
2024 opened with the launch of the Ospedale di Erba srl company, to which the Lombardo Veneta province of Fatebenefratelli – which currently remains the owner – conferred the Erba structure, the employees and all the existing accreditations. A first epochal change awaiting the definitive sale, even if in fact nothing has changed: same faces, same professionals, same directors (Damiano Rivolta for the administrative part e Pierpaolo Maggioni for healthcare) and the same references in the Fatebenefratelli headquarters in Cernusco sul Naviglio.
A surreal situation for the 447 employees of the structure, people who go to work every day without knowing what will happen in the coming months, what the industrial plans of the new company Nicola Bedin owned by the Exor degli Agnelli fund. In recent days the Province spoke with doctors, nurses and trade union representatives, for everyone uncertainty reigns supreme: in the morning people go to work without knowing what the next steps will be and whether all the services offered by the structure will be maintained by Lifenet.
The atmosphere among the staff is one of expectation and apprehension. It is no mystery, as confirmed by qualified sources, that some doctors are looking around in search of safer havens, also because no one (starting from the unions) has yet met the new ownership and no one is aware of the industrial plan that will be proposed from the Milanese company. It is likely that other union meetings will be organized shortly – following those in December – to take stock of the situation.
There are few fixed points
To date there are few fixed points. The first is that the friars still residing in the Erba structure, there are about ten of them, will leave Erba by the end of January: they will be transferred to the headquarters of the Lombardy-Venetian Province, in Cernusco sul Naviglio.
After the Christmas holidays, the Province then returned to ask for an interview with Bedin: Lifenet responded that the CEO will speak at the definitive closing of the agreement, scheduled for a couple of months (the preliminary agreement for the sale it was signed instead on 22 December 2023). In short, in mid-March, employees and users will learn about the new ownership and its projects.
Finally, according to the information collected in the hospital sector, it seems that the Fatebenefratelli will continue to support Lifenet for a few months following the definitive signature, to guarantee an orderly handover: the new ownership will be autonomous, after having acquired 100% of the hospital of Erba srl, in the second half of the year.
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2024-01-21 17:00:00
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