With summer comes yet another Italian folly aimed at making life impossible for boaters. A madness that will do damage and must be stopped.
THE CRAZY HEALTH QUESTIONNAIRE
When we read what reader Alberto Roggero wrote to us, we could not believe our eyes: “But how many of us will be able and willing to stop at ports after the Ministry of Health’s creative circular (health surveillance on recreational boats without date) That requires a questionnaire to be sent to maritime health (signed by Dr Mauro Dionisio, directorate general of health prevention) Before entering port and having free health practice? As of today, they have decided that if you go over six hours. (and do not return to the port of departure). you have to fill out (on board we have printers and scanners like everyone…) the questionnaire and send it to the maritime health then wait for their ok at port entry“.
Good Albert did not invent anything. It’s all true! HERE you can find the Ministry of Health circular signed by Dr. Mauro Dionisio:
“It is hereby ordered until the cessation of the Covid19 pandemic, that masters of recreational vessels of less than 24 meters in length, coming from domestic ports and having sailed for more than 6 hours… shall complete the attached maritime declaration of health for recreation and transmit it by email, or other means, to the competent maritime health office. In the absence of negative answers to the simplified questionnaire, the recreational vessel is to be considered automatically in free sanitary practice and, subject to authorization from the maritime authority, may proceed to port. Otherwise, it will be necessary to wait for the Nulla Osta from the Port Health Authority.”
OF COURSE, WE ALL HAVE PRINTERS OR SCANNERS IN THE BOAT
But how do you send it? Raise your hand if you have printers and scanners in your boat. Then, why the six-hour time frame? We have tried to put ourselves in the shoes of a poor cruise passenger who, every time he or she calls at a marina during his or her sailing, finds himself or herself having to fill out a questionnaire that is not at all “streamlined” (you can find it here: questionnaire-sanitary-boat) and, above all, to mail it to the appropriate maritime health office. How? Photographing it with a smartphone and cropping it with an app? And then, on the other side, who will respond? HERE is the list of offices to apply to (hoping they will respond).
The statement, among other things, is discriminatory, Roggero points out: someone who sails by boat for more than six hours changing port is “discriminated against compared to someone who would have to take a car from Palermo and get to Trieste. This would have no control (the trip is certainly longer than six hours at sea) instead in the boat you are forced to health check!”
Roggero rightly concludes, “This virus is bringing out all the ignorant recreational boatingbureaucrats who will actually restrict cruising.”
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD
We ask everyone, boaters, captains, navy: make your voices heard! Send an email to the Directorate General of Health Prevention, to the attention of Dr. Mauro Dionisio expressing your disappointment with a measure that is unnecessary and, worse, harmful to the entire boating industry. This is the email: dgprev@postacert.sanita.it
