Voto:
Millions of euros diverted to luxury hotels in Costa Smeralda and real estate speculation, favors for friends, and megalomaniacal projects. This is how San Raffaele was brought to its knees.
Brazilian plantations. Buildings and hospitals in Eastern European countries. Planes and helicopters registered to companies in New Zealand. The treasure hunt for San Raffaele has officially begun. But to trace the hundreds of millions of misguided investments that led to the downfall of Don Luigi Verzé's healthcare empire, one doesn't need to go to the ends of the earth. The catastrophe began and developed in Milan and the surrounding area. At most, to understand how and why one of the nation's leading healthcare facilities was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, it suffices to take a quick trip to Costa Smeralda, to the beach overlooking the azure sea in front of Tavolara Island. Don Verzé made it there as well. No hospitals. No charitable works. More prosaically, a four-star hotel, the Don Diego, reserved for an elite clientele, at least judging by the prices: up to five thousand euros for a week in high season. The hotel is owned by the Monte Tabor Foundation, the same one that controls San Raffaele. However, the management is entrusted to another company, San Diego srl, which is headed by five shareholders. One of them is actor Renato Pozzetto (the one from Cochi and Renato). Another, holding a 20 percent stake, is named Mario Cal. None other than the right-hand man of Don Verzé, the manager who committed suicide last Monday.
THEREFORE, the Foundation diverted millions of euros from healthcare activities to hospitality, and one of its top executives personally got involved, with an investment of a few tens of thousands of euros, to share in the profits of the venture. Profits that, to be honest, are yet to materialize, given that the Don Diego hotel is operating at a loss. The Sardinian initiative is, on the whole, a small affair, at least when compared to the billion or more dollars of debt weighing down San Raffaele, but it provides insight into how things were managed in Don Verzé's domain. Over time, a myriad of misguided investments and megalomaniacal projects have undermined the visionary priest's great work at its foundations, also featuring evident conflicts of interest, as seen in the case of the San Diego hotel. “Everything is possible to those who believe,” repeats the ninety-year-old chief of the Monte Tabor Foundation. Almost everything, one might correct. For example, if a portion of the funds provided by the Lombardy Region for reimbursements of medicines and hospital stays (over 400 million a year) is funneled into the most disparate initiatives, it’s clear that one is heading straight toward disaster. For a while, the burden of this reckless strategy was shifted onto suppliers. Thus, the debt owed to companies supplying San Raffaele, from pharmaceutical firms to IT providers, skyrocketed to over 500 million.
IN SIMPLE TERMS, public funding has been partially absorbed by initiatives that had nothing to do with the common good. Such as the colossal dome topped with an archangel that cost over 60 million. Or the new hospital in Olbia, which cost over 200 million euros, largely financed by banks. A facility that was completed just a few months ago and seems destined to remain idle until the fate of the entire healthcare group is clarified. Then there’s the chapter on real estate speculation. A short trip of a few kilometers from Milan to Cologno Monzese, a town in the hinterland, proves this. Here, a company of San Raffaele, Edilraf, once managed by Cal, restored a historic villa set in a park where it also built dozens of apartments. The operation also involved the Diodoro construction group of Pierino Zammarchi, which, however, pulled out at the end of 2008. Now everything is at a standstill. The apartments remain unsold, previously offered at prices deemed above market. Both the auditorium and the restaurant that