Padre Pio’s hospital is struggling with mounting debts and labor problems

ROME – While a giant hospital founded by Padre Pio strongly denied on Saturday that it is for sale, despite recent rumors to the contrary, how to solve chronic debt and mounting labor problems at the Vatican hospital Casa Sollievo della Sofferenzaor ‘House of Relief from Suffering’, remains an open question.

Over the past week, a series of reports in the Italian press suggested that the hospital’s administration was negotiating with several potential buyers, mainly large private sector holding companies.

A Nov. 23 statement on the hospital’s website denied these reports, calling them “completely baseless” and emphasizing that no such negotiations are underway, either with private healthcare groups or with other potential buyers.

The hospital “remains the property of the Holy See, which appointed a new governing council in the fall of 2022 with the authority to address the hospital’s economic and financial problems,” the statement said.

“To this day, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza The hospital remains a fundamental healthcare facility for the Apulia region and for the whole of southern Italy,” the hospital said.

Padre Pio opened the hospital on May 5, 1956 in San Giovanni Rotondo, the southern Italian community where his Capuchin monastery was located. It is part of the so-called “spur” at the heel of the Italian peninsula, which juts out into the Adriatic Sea.

The Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza is one of only two healthcare institutions, along with the Rome-based Bambino Gesù children’s hospital, that is directly controlled by the Vatican. The facility is managed by a committee headed by the Vatican Secretary of State, while its properties are controlled by the Heritage Administration of the Apostolic See.

Today, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza includes 756 beds and 2,729 employees (including 469 physicians and 1,269 nurses), with an annual average of 32,551 admissions and 922,655 outpatient procedures. According to hospital figures, it earned $240 million in 2023, of which $208 million came in the form of reimbursements from the Apulia region for expenses covered by the national healthcare system.

Despite the fact that it has been the largest and most modern healthcare institution in the southern half of Italy for years Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza has faced increasing financial problems.

According to a 2023 report in the Italian newspaper Corriere della SeraOnly four times in the past eighteen years has the hospital not run a deficit. Recently, San Giovanni Rotondo Mayor Filippo Barbano, who is also a nuclear medicine doctor at the hospital, confirmed that the total deficit is around $260 million.

In 2019, the San Giovanni Rotondo city council quietly asked the Vatican to pay off just over $2 million in the hospital’s delinquent property taxes. In 2022, Spanish Jesuit Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, said the hospital must take “urgent measures” to avoid its survival being questioned.

A recovery plan to reduce the hospital’s shortage involves reducing the number of available beds to 585 within three years, increasing patient turnover efficiency and also gradually reducing the workforce by selectively replacing an estimated 350 employees who will retire between now and 2026. However, some observers believe that have expressed doubts about whether these measures will work.

Moreover, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza has also been plagued by labor problems lately.

A series of meetings last week between unions representing different categories of workers and management failed to resolve the issues, as some union representatives left the meetings in protest. Bottlenecks include missed deadlines for contract renewals and announced cuts to productivity bonuses.

Unions representing hospital paramedics also complained about inequality compared to other medical workers, noting that doctors can currently earn up to $520 a month in productivity incentives, while paramedics receive only about $68.

More broadly, unions are insisting that most of the burden of reducing institutional debt should be placed on workers, calling instead for cuts in wasteful spending and benefits that only meet benefit a select number of employees.

The next round of labor and management talks is scheduled for December 5, with the prospect of strikes and work stoppages looming if no deal is reached.

Barbano expressed confidence that Padre Pio will help the hospital find solutions to its problems.

“St. Pio will not abandon us, and he certainly will not abandon the area and the hospital he wanted for those most in need,” he said. “I believe that the spirit that must inspire us is to be faithful to the teachings of Padre Pio.”

“We cannot allow a structure like this to be set aside, so you have to roll up your sleeves,” the mayor said. “It may take some sacrifice, but we are ready to support our House.”