To those who claim that trade unionists (and journalists) are no longer of any use, we need to tell what is happening in these hours at the San Raffaele hospital: that is, in the national model of excellence of private healthcare under an agreement, therefore paid for by the State. Precisely thanks to the complaint from internal representatives of the unitary union representation, later confirmed by health sources who showed the documentation, on the evening of Sunday 7 December our Dossier – the investigations and in-depth section of uisjournal.com – ​​was able to publish at the beginning the news of the chaos which caused serious dangers for the patients hospitalized in the high intensity advanced care medicine department.

Shifts paid gold at San Raffaele: from 600 to a thousand euros

The incredible chain of errors was triggered by the outsourcing of assistance services to a cooperative of incompetent nurses: the complete report, with the shock report of the doctor on call, can be found at the bottom of this article.

The San Donato Group, owner of the San Raffaele in Milan, must now be recognized for having responded promptly to the emergency. To replace the incompetent nurses and restore minimum healthcare security in the department on the third floor of the Iceberg pavilion, the administration is in fact offering its staff extra shifts with war zone wages: one thousand euros for each night shift and 600 euros for the day shift, until Tuesday 9 December (photo above). In 2024, the group declared profits, before interest, taxes and depreciation, of 323 million.

Because the administrator Francesco Galli resigned

It is paradoxical to now witness the waste of so many economic resources. The sole administrator of San Raffaele, Francesco Galli, and the group had not granted the nursing staff the increases that the government instead granted to colleagues in public structures, with the renewal of the national employment contract in October. A hard line that led to the resignation of dozens of expert nurses from the Milanese hospital: 17 left in one fell swoop with their coordinator from the advanced care medicine department. 80 percent of the team in service, as reported in the investigation by our Marialaura Iazzetti on Dossier MilanoToday, 13 October 2025.

The other decision that must be recognized by the San Donato Group – with an extraordinary board of directors convened on the holiday of 8 December – is to have immediately initiated the revocation of the sole director’s office. A procedure that Francesco Galli, a manager who grew up within the company, anticipated by resigning. According to internal rumors, Galli is paying for the choice of not wanting to hire new staff – in line with the savings policy imposed for years – in favor of contracting outside the cooperative. A contract that the sole director would have signed against the advice of important executives. The group’s CEO, Marco Centenari, was appointed in Galli’s place.

You can’t even end the story with the classic “all’s well that ends well”. Because the emergency is not over: now we need to find new nurses and rebuild the healthcare safety that a structure of excellence in care and research must guarantee. And face the probable criminal investigations (above, the chaos on the treatment trolley for serious patients hospitalized in the advanced care medicine department of the San Raffaele in Milan).

A nurse disappeared during her medical shift

According to the doctor on duty, one of the external nurses even left the service at 5 in the morning. Why did she leave? The doubt of some doctors is that he did not have the qualifications to operate in such a demanding sector. So much so that he administered 200 milliliters of a heart drug per hour, instead of 20. And that he did not recognize the difference between Amiodarone, used to treat serious cardiac arrhythmias, and the non-existent Modarone. This will also be reported in the complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office that the San Raffaele union representatives, Margherita Napoletano and Daniela Rottoli, announced.

Advanced care medicine is the department that receives serious patients from the emergency room and is located on the third floor in the same Iceberg pavilion, the building inaugurated in 2021 that houses the new surgical center and emergencies at San Raffaele. The structure (photo above) owes its name to its vague resemblance to an ice mountain. This is what the project costing 60 million and signed by Mario Cucinella wanted. Parsimonious in contracts with nurses and doctors, since the time of its founder Don Luigi Verzé the hospital has instead invested heavily in its image by financing steel domes, windows under the sky and starchitect towers. Expensive and extraordinary works for design enthusiasts, but not so essential for healthcare purposes.

San Donato Group: record profits of 323 million in 2024

At the beginning of June 2025 the San Donato Group presented its new corporate structure in Italy and around the world. For this reason, the previous board of directors of San Raffaele was replaced by the full powers of the sole director Francesco Galli. Also in those days the 2024 budget is illustrated: “Revenues – communicates the hospital holding – reached 2 billion and 570 million euros, they were 1 billion and 724 million in 2019, an overall growth in the period of 49%, despite the drop in turnover in 2020 due to the covid pandemic”. Even the profit before interest, taxes and amortization (Ebitda) is a record: “In 2024 it will reach 323 million euros – announces the San Donato Group – they were 207 million euros in 2019, thus obtaining an overall growth in the period of 56%”.

Incompetent contract nurses, dangerous situation and chaos in Medicine at San Raffaele – by Fabrizio Gatti

One success after another for the group’s president, the former minister Angelino Alfanothe vice presidents Paolo Rotelli, Marco Rotelli and Kamel Ghribi and the board members, the lawyer Nicola Grigoletto and the magistrate Augusta Iannini, wife of the Rai journalist, Bruno Vespa. The difficulty in finding nurses (the courses in Milan cover only half of the available places), the renewal of employment contracts and the obvious need to increase control over procurement and the outsourcing of services are the new challenge for San Raffaele to overcome the days of the emergency as soon as possible. And thus maintain its reputation for excellence. Here is the shock report from the doctor on call and confirmations from the health management.

Read the shock report of the doctor on call – by Fabrizio Gatti