ASL Bari and Confesercenti Terra Metropolitana di Bari have signed an important collaboration protocol in order to prevent gambling addiction. Training courses will be organized (in person or remotely, and in the future the Municipalities could also be involved) for managers and employees of all those activities in which the presence of public games is recorded (including betting rooms, bars, tobacconists, etc. .).
The ASL will provide a multi-professional team (doctor, psychologist and social worker) who will take care of training and teaching in order to reduce the risks of pathological gambling and gambling addiction. The training courses (mandatory according to Regional Law no. 43 of December 2013) will last 12 hours. «Gambling addiction is one of the silent cancers of current society – explains the president of Confesercenti Bari, Dr. Raffaella Altamura – and, without any rhetoric, it is destroying entire families. There are many people affected by this problem: young people, very young people, but also elderly people, often in already precarious economic and social situations, who see gaming as the only possibility of improving their living conditions. For this reason, as a trade association we felt the duty to engage in this initiative which we believe to be of very high social value and which we will propose to all the municipalities in the province of Bari. This collaboration agreement with the Local Health Authority – continues Dr. Altamura – allows us to train our members and their employees because, unfortunately, there is never too much prevention."
