Crans-Montana, bills sent 'by mistake' to the injured: the canton will pay

A bitter surprise added to the pain that has lasted almost four months. Three of the families of the young people injured on New Year's Eve in the ConstellationConstellation, in Crans-Montana, were recently sent, probably by 'mistake', very large bills from the cantonal hospital in Sion. Staggering amounts for a very short hospital stay: in two cases just over 17,000 francs (equal to just over 18,000 euro), up to 66,810 francs (73,000 euro) for the latest bill. At the bottom, there is a small footnote: 'The invoice is not to be paid'.

This is yet another stumbling block in relations between Italia and Switzerland, caused by an 'error', as it was called in the government corridors of the canton of Valais, probably generated by an over-zealous or distracted official. "The medical services of the Valais hospital are not paid for by the families," the cantonal health department, which reports directly to the Valais president Mathias Reynard, wanted to clarify. The impasse was resolved by a telephone call on Monday afternoon between Reynard himself and the Italian ambassador in Bern Gian Lorenzo Cornado. "The president of the canton of Valais assured me that the families owed nothing to the hospitals and that the medical expenses would be borne in full by the canton of Valais, and possibly by the Swiss Confederation, and that nothing would be asked of the Italian state, as they had announced from the outset," the diplomat explained.

"It is clear that there is no way that anyone should have to shell out a single euro for what happened," adds the Lombardy Region's Councillor for Welfare Guido Bertolaso, who represents the families in the Beloved Foundation, set up in Sion to support the victims of the tragedy, in which 41 people died, including six Italians, and 115 were injured. If the issue has 'cooled off', at least from a diplomatic point of view, there still remains a shadow of ambiguity in the administrative language of the Valais department, according to which it is up to the LAMal, the Swiss structure that manages medical expenses internationally, 'to determine with the Italian insurance companies (and/or the Italian international liaison structure), which insurance company takes charge of which benefit'.

Cornado and Reynard will meet again in Martigny next Friday 24 April to definitively resolve the 'misunderstanding' and make some progress on the complex compensation dossier. The families' bitterness remains: their lawyer Domenico Radice is their spokesman, describing the health facility's initiative as 'inappropriate'. 'Generally speaking,' he says, 'we believe that the costs should be borne by the Swiss authorities, also considering the presumed public responsibilities that have emerged so far, and this is precisely why sending the invoices could have been avoided'.