Medical certificate for returning to school: the number of Regions that have abolished it is increasing
The medical certificate for returning to school has been abolished for the first time in the South of the country.
In fact, Calabria is added to the list of regions in which it is no longer necessary to present a medical certificate when returning to school after an absence due to illness.
There were already twelve Regions that had established the abolition of the medical certificate at school, all in Central and Northern Italy.
One of the last Regions that had issued a regional law to stop the medical certificate after five days of illness was Tuscany last March, now Calabria has also taken over with a regional law.
However, there remain exceptions to the rule.
The details.
Medical certificate for returning to school: Calabria among the Regions that have abolished it.
A regional law in Calabria establishes that the medical certificate is not needed for returning to school after illness.
This eliminates some bureaucratic procedures for families and doctors, especially after the Covid pandemic complicated the return of students to the classroom after infection.
We read in the explanatory report that accompanies the official document of the law of the Calabria Region, that the same "aims to streamline the administrative-bureaucratic procedures for school readmission for subjects absent for five days.
The regulatory intervention fully falls within the scope of what is pursued by law 15 March 1997, n.
59 (Delegation to the Government for the conferral of functions and tasks to the regions and local authorities for the reform of public administration and for administrative simplification).
The objective is to eliminate unnecessary administrative activities that overload local medicine and those of free-choice paediatricians, whose lack of resources is now a well-known fact, aggravated by the pandemic period and the well-known shortage of general practitioners." read also School open in summer and modification of History and Geography programs: what Valditara said The Fimp (Italian Federation of Pediatric Doctors) also comes to comment on the regional law that abolishes the medical certificate in the thirteenth region of the list, as reported by the Gazzetta del Sud : Calabria is the first region in the South to abolish this certificate, which has already happened several years ago in twelve regions, all in the Centre-North, and this certainly does honor to the entire current Regional Council.
It was a certificate required by a 1967 law, now anachronistic as today all children are visited by a pediatrician of free choice who agrees with the parents on the period of treatment and convalescence.
The paediatricians further explain: Today we also know well that the contagiousness of the various infectious diseases common in childhood and adolescence is greater in the incubation period (when the child still goes to school) and at the onset of the disease, while it progressively weakens during the acute phase, to disappear during convalescence.
The experience in the regions which, for several years now, have replaced the certificate with self-certification by the family, shows that no infectious outbreaks have been recorded upon returning to the classroom.
read also When is a medical certificate needed for returning to school Medical certificate for returning to school: the exceptions The medical certificate has thus been abolished where the student is absent due to illness for five consecutive days, however some exceptions remain.
As mentioned by the paediatricians themselves, the medical certificate is only needed for diseases subject to notification to the public hygiene service of the ASP (Public Personal Services Companies) and it is these specific situations that have periods of home isolation established by law as happened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The other Regions which, like Calabria, and before it, have abolished the medical certificate are: Lombardy; Piedmont; Friuli Venezia Giulia; Liguria; Province of Trento; Province of Bolzano; Emilia Romagna; Umbria; Marche; Lazio; Veneto; Tuscany; Sardinia.
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