by Simona Brandolini
The former minister: “Due to non-Covid pneumonia, I had difficulty breathing. ICU? A Vietnamese prison”
“Despite all the vaccinations, against pneumococcus, against Covid, against influenza, I had non-Covid pneumonia, which led to hospitalization and intensive care with breathing difficulties.” Intensive care unit…. A Vietnamese prison. But it saves your life. Paolo Cirino Pomicino was born in 1939. Experienced Christian Democrat, former minister and President of the Budget Commission, who has become a kind of wise Cassandra: For years he has been giving advice on new policies, mostly unnoticed. He says he is “familiar with death.” This time he actually escaped. What follows is an unpublished story of an Edwardian, not a Sorrentine, Pomicino.
Pneumonia this time, but she also had two transplants.
“You had the crocodiles ready, right? So: two transplants plus two bypasses, one in London, the other in Houston. Plus two more minor surgeries, including a cholecystectomy.
Small for her.
“For me, yes. And two very serious pneumonias, one now with hospitalization at Gemelli and the other last year, a month at Molinette. There was also a skin tumor that resulted in 35 sessions of radiotherapy. I have to say that I really missed Manzoni's God I've seen something up close that worries and comforts you. Something that connected me very much to a hundred-year-old baby Jesus who lies with me in the bedroom and who I often took with me to the intensive care unit. When something has to happen, his clothes smell of incense. Something amazing.”
You are a doctor, what do you understand about your body? Of his resistance?
“I haven’t found any medical understanding. My family was massacred by death. I am the last living of seven brothers and I was not the last. My second brother died at 33, Bruno at 45, the first at 53 and the last, youngest, Lucio at 72. In addition to my only sister who left us last year due to cancer. I understood that our Lord decided this way. I'm not stronger. My brothers died with only one disease. I have always had the courage, luck and perhaps special protection to move forward. I had a kidney transplant without ever being at risk of dialysis. There is no medical element.
If there isn't the medical element, is there the human element?
“Yes, I believe I have many responsibilities on my shoulders, because I am the only one left, and if our Lord has the wisdom to let me live, it is a sign that there is a reason . “And it is the obligation to my family and my brothers’ children who have lost their fathers and mothers.”
Is it a comfort to be a believer?
“Of course, but religion is not the opium of the people. Our Lord is also present in these trials, but of course he is often asked unanswered questions. Anyone looking for rational answers will not find them. And that’s where faith comes in.”
And his wonderful child Jesus?
“I talk to him and he answers me. With the ideas that come to me. With signals like the smell of incense when something is about to happen.”
His public image is that of a brash politician, but in private he is often emotional. Is it because of age?
“He who is immodest must have something special that cannot be seen that enables him to be bold.” Do you know when my faith was strengthened? When my brother Mariano died of a brain tumor, I went to see my mother, who was dedicated to the Madonna of Pompeii. She looked at the painting and said to her: I don't understand you, but I trust you. This is the underlying element. So at my age you are also very attentive to the pain of the world. A world full of tears and pain, unbelievable. We are a generation that grew up in Europe for 70 years without war. Get used to a feeling of well-being that means the absence of sudden and hopeless pain. Elsewhere there is endemic suffering and poverty.”
After Corona, everyone without exception says: We have to invest in health care. Overall and based on your experiences, how is the Italian healthcare system doing?
“Very bad: In 1987 the initial aim was to see the limited number of universities as useful. An idea that was based on a time when too many doctors were emerging. The forecasts were already different in the mid-90s. We had to acknowledge it. Then there were major structural cuts and no major infrastructural interventions. The last thing I did as President of the Budget Commission was 20 billion for hospital construction, which is still being used today because it hasn't all been spent yet. Healthcare affects people, feelings and lives. You can't save. Not to mention that we have proletarianized doctors.”
One last question: As a Catholic, what do you think about an end-of-life law?
“We have no truth to save souls when the body is lost, but when they are not there, the only human response remains charity, an immense, generous charity that perhaps even the legislature could draw inspiration from.” We should provide a possible path forward when faced with “innocent pain.” A reason without an answer, in short: “I don’t understand you, but I confide it to you” from my dear mother.”
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December 30, 2023
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