Unsanified ambulances and rigged contracts, First Aid One Italia cooperative seized

A cooperative operating in the health transport sector,

, with its registered office in Pesaro and operational headquarters in Bollate (Milan), entrusted with public tenders for the ambulance service throughout Italy, was seized by the Gdf of Pavia, in '' area of ​​investigations for the offenses of illegal hiring and rigged contracts for a total value of approximately 11 million euros.

The measure, explains the Gdf, represents the natural continuation of an investigation which, already last March, had led to the arrest of 4 people, including the then general manager of Asst Pavia, as well as searches and seizures of equipment IT in various geographical areas of the country (Lombardy, Marche, Lazio and Sicily), for the offenses of auction disruption and fraud in public supplies ".

The investigations led to the seizure of assets for an amount of approximately 200 thousand euros, including financial resources, buildings, land and vehicles.

"The cooperative - writes the Gdf - acted through nominees, in order to conceal the constant presence and effective management of the company by one of the suspects already definitively condemned in 2017 for disturbed freedom of the enchantments, and had devised an infallible method to win all the contracts in which it participated: to propose prices so low that they sometimes exceeded the limit of anti-cheapness and to ensure, only formally, a large fleet of vehicles. It is a pity, however, that the low prices were obtained from the exploitation of workers and the number of vehicles employed which was significantly lower than that provided for in the contract. Naturally, the small number of medical vehicles present in the area compromised the efficiency of the aid available to the community ".

"Inevitable the consequent inefficiencies. In fact, already from the first months of operation, the quality of the service required by the contract was far below what was agreed, creating numerous and continuous inefficiencies combined with significant delays and missed health services, often confirmed also by reports received from patients transported and from doctors on duty at hospitals ". 

The contracts were also obtained to the detriment of the safety of those transported by ambulance: thus, according to the GDF, the First Aid One cooperative was awarded contracts throughout Italy "with consequent serious disservices".

From the video footage carried out in some ambulances, it was found that the sanitizations prescribed after the transport of each patient were rarely performed, especially in times of pandemic: "in one of the monitored ambulances, in 20 days of work with the transport of 92 patients it was sanitized only in 4 occasions while another, in 9 days of service and 86 patients transported, was sanitized once ".