Italian Bureaucracy at its Best

Via Ansa:

An Italian woman has managed to prove her existence in a year-long battle with Italian bureaucracy after the death of a namesake.
Maria Giuliani, 74, received an official apology from pension agency INPS Tuesday after it put her back in its databank.
"But they only did it because the local media got hold of my case," Giuliani said.
The woman was deprived of her pension rights and wiped off municipal and health computers when another Maria Giuliani died in January 2006.
"The first I heard about it was the following March when I went for a check-up".
"My GP fell back into his chair and said, 'But you're dead!'. 'No, I'm alive and kicking and I want to be examined,' I said. But he said he couldn't do it because officially I no longer existed".
(snip)
The only good thing about the affair, Giuliani said, was that "I got to play dead and send my husband and daughter to do all the standing in line for me".
Despite the apology, the feisty pensioner still can't quite forgive Italian officialdom.
Before she signed the certificate declaring herself alive, she told reporters, "they actually warned me not to make false statements".