Scandal between Italy and Switzerland: Rome refuses to pay for the hospitalization of the Italian victims of the fire in Crans-Montana
Italy will not cover the costs of its citizens hospitalized in Switzerland following the Crans-Montana fire, even if the Swiss health insurance system requests it, Italy's ambassador to Bern, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, confirmed on Friday.
The fire occurred on New Year's Eve PHOTO Profimedia
The hospital in Sion (Valais) sent the Italian state three invoices totaling more than 100,000 Swiss francs (109,000 euros) “for one day of hospitalization on January 1”the ambassador said, according to Blick.
“Absolutely outrageous”
The Italian ambassador in Switzerland considers these amounts “absolutely outrageous” and claims that they “must be covered either by LAMal (Swiss health insurance) or by the canton of Valais, but in no case by families or the Italian state”according to the publication.
The fire at the Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, produced on New Year's Eve 2026, resulted in 41 deaths, including six Italians, and 115 injuries.
During a meeting on Friday with the president of the canton of Valais, Mathias Reynard, the Italian ambassador assured that “the Italian state will never accept to bear the costs of the care given for just a few hours to our young people who were poisoned or burned and who suffered because of the irresponsibility of the administrators of the premises, where the emergency exits had been blocked, as well as the municipal and cantonal authorities who should have carried out or ordered the checks and did not”.
According to him, the president of the government of Valais suggested that he contact the Swiss Federal Department of the Interior, responsible for health, to “reach a bilateral solution”on the basis of reciprocity, as two Swiss patients were hospitalized for months in a hospital in Milan without being issued invoices.
Tensions between Italy and Switzerland
The Italian ambassador had already been recalled to Rome for several weeks, with his government protesting the release of the bar manager and calling for a joint investigation team.
Bills were sent to patients “for information only”without requiring payment, according to Italian health insurance legislation (LAMal). Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned these bills on Tuesday, calling them right “an insult, but also a farce that only an inhuman bureaucracy could produce”.
This represents “a new source of tension” between Switzerland and Italy in relation to this tragedy, the ambassador commented on Friday, expressing his hope that “the problem can be solved without further complications”with the involvement of the Confederation.
