The blog has an interview with Alessandro Appari:
”When I was 18 years old I was diagnosed with a bone tumour on the right leg, so they amputated it. After 2 years of inactivity I started to work and I got a payment as a civil invalid of 250 thousand lire a month. After a year and a half they took that away from me because I had an income over 4,000 euro a year gross. I got a bit angry and for 15 years I stopped paying the INPS contribution. After various reminders I had to pay, otherwise they would have seized a part of the apartment where I lived with my mother. I paid 15 years of back payments amounting to 27 thousand euro. But the funny thing is that I certainly don’t find to be fair is that I had to pay for this prosthesis because the USL gives me 3 thousand euro every 4 years, however they give me a prosthesis like a basic car. If I want extra things that allow me to walk better I have to pay. In the end this prosthesis has cost me 22 million lire. Now I’m working at the Portofino gas station for the boats. But it’s seasonal work, lasting just 6 months a year. For the other 6 months I have no income, and apart from the fact that for most of the day I am on my feet, and I also have problems with my back, however, in reality, they don’t help me at all because every time I have to do something, there’s always this problem with the prosthesis, the boat driving licence, the license for the motor bike, so now to do this prosthesis I don’t know what I’ll do. It costs 30 thousand euro. That’s not peanuts. The benefits people give me just 3 thousand euro every 4 years, because I am a civil invalid. If I were an invalid because of an accident at work, I wouldn’t have to pay anything and I could have one of the best prosthesis every year. Because I am a civil invalid, I don’t have the rights of an invalid who has suffered an accident at work, but in the end, we are in the same situation. We have lost a leg anyway, because one who is an invalid because of an accident at work is covered because they have paid INPS and above all because they have paid INAIL. This happened to me when I was 17 years old and I wasn’t working, I wasn’t paying contributions. I wouldn’t even want benefits because anyway it would amount to 250 euro a month, perhaps because there will be a law that says that invalids are invalids and if one wants a leading edge prosthesis they have to pay. I would like them to meet me half way with the prosthesis or for them to give me a deduction on the taxes I pay for the work I do. I repeat: I work for 6 months a year. I’m not really bothered about benefits but I sincerely wish that they would help me a bit more with the prosthesis.”