00:00Switzerland or Italy, who covers Medigal coast after the Grand Montana fire?
00:09You may remember the deadly New Year's Eve fire in the Swiss resort of Grand Montana,
00:13which killed 41 mostly young people, in one of Switzerland's worst fire tragedies on record.
00:19Months later, the tragedy has taken a political turn after a spat broke out over who is responsible
00:24for the victims' hospital fees. On the 21st of April, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
00:29said she was shocked that victims' families had received medical bills from Swiss hospitals.
00:35Three Italian families did indeed receive notices, some of which outlined costs of up to 70 000 euros
00:41sparking outrage in Italy. But Swiss authorities told us that the fire's victims and their families
00:46are not expected to pay for treatment. They added that the documents they received were not itemized
00:52bills but informational copies issued under Swiss law. But although the victims and their families
00:57do not have to pay, Italy's healthcare system might. The Swiss Federal Social Insurance Office
01:02says the case falls under long-standing European rules on cross-border healthcare. And this is true,
01:08under these rules, EU insured patients treated in Swiss hospitals had their costs covered. These
01:13are then billed to the patient's home insurer. In this case, that would be Italy's public health
01:18system. But this sparked a fierce debate, with Meloni saying that Rome would reject any such
01:23request to reimburse Switzerland. Italy's ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told us that
01:28Rome expects Bern to waive all reimbursement claims. He added that Italy won't ask Switzerland to reimburse
01:34expenses for two Italian victims, who were treated in Milan for nearly two months. For the Italians,
01:40the Swiss canton of Vallée and the owners of the Constellation Bar, where the fire broke out,
01:45bear a moral responsibility for the tragedy, unlike Italy itself. Either way,
01:49the reimbursement process has not been formally launched, and the total medical costs are still unknown.
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