Oncological oblivion, how to obtain the certificate to protect yourself on mortgages and policies

Oncological forgetting, which protects former patients from disease-related discrimination, is now also a right in Italy thanks to the law passed last year, which now, however, with the publication of the second implementing decree in the Official Gazette, takes a further step forward: in fact, the procedures for issuing a certificate attesting to forgetting are laid down, and some former patients will need it to amend pejorative clauses in contracts such as mortgages and insurance policies.

The decree states that 'the person concerned, already a cancer patient', must submit 'an application, if necessary accompanied by the relevant medical documentation, for the issue of the certificate attesting to the oncological oblivion, to an accredited public or private healthcare facility or to a doctor employed by the SSN in the discipline relating to the oncological pathology for which oblivion is requested, or to the general practitioner or freely chosen paediatrician'. The certification, reads Article 2, is issued 'within thirty days of the request if, in the opinion of the certifying facility or doctor, the time prerequisites (ten years or five years) required by law subsist'. .

The certification, oncologists clarify, will not, however, be necessary for all former patients. Oblivion, says the president of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (Aiom) Franco Perrone, "is already a right sanctioned by law, which stipulates that these people are no longer obliged, after the lapse of time from the end of the treatments indicated for the various neoplasms and which can vary from 1 to 5 or 10 years, to provide information or undergo investigations regarding their past neoplasm". Therefore, he clarifies, 'oblivion is already provided for and there is no need for a person to declare or certify their status as a former patient'. The certification will instead be necessary, he points out, 'if a former patient already has a mortgage or, for example, an insurance policy stipulated before the law came into force and characterised by clauses or rates that are worse because of having had to declare having a neoplasm. These people will therefore need the certificate to prove that they are now covered by the oncology statute in order to be able to change the contractual or insurance conditions that are worse due to the past declaration of illness. The decree therefore only affects a minority of former patients'.

Satisfaction on the part of the secretary of the Federation of Voluntary Associations in Oncology (Favo) Elisabetta Iannelli, who points out, however, that for the law to be fully operational there are still two more implementation decrees and two more resolutions to be passed. The first decree issued was on the definition of a list of oncological pathologies cured in a shorter time than those provided for by the law in general (10 years or 5 if the tumour arose before the age of 21). A decree is now expected, he explains, 'a decree from the Ministry of Justice to implement a stop to discrimination against those who apply for adoption, and a further decree, from the Ministry of Labour in agreement with the Ministry of Health, to promote active policies to ensure that those who have had cancer have equal opportunities in the workplace'. The hope, he concludes, is that these measures 'will arrive as soon as possible to make the law on forgetting definitively operational'.