In a move that your boss would probably like to adopt, the mayor of an Italian village has ruled that residents are now forbidden from being sick.
According to the BBC, those living in Beclastro have been “ordered to avoid contracting any illness that may require emergency medical assistance.” That includes not “engag[ing] in behaviors that may be harmful and to avoid domestic accidents,” and not “leav[ing] the house too often, travel or practice sports, and to [instead] rest for the majority of the time.”
However, the law is not so much serious as it is “obviously a humorous provocation” by Mayor Antonio Torchia in an effort to raise awareness of Beclastro’s struggling health care system. As the BBC points out, the village is more than 28 miles from the nearest Accident & Emergency department, and around half of its 1,200-person population is over 65 years old.
“[The mayor] has used a provocative decree to attract attention on a serious problem,” a resident told local media.