Regions to the Government: no to cuts to healthcare or we will go to the Consulta. Appeal by 14 scientists to save the NHS

Listen to the audio version of the article

Repeal of title 1 paragraph 13 of the Pnrr decree which cuts 1.2 billion euros to the Regions mainly relating to works for the seismic safety of hospital structures, or a formal commitment for the reinstatement of the funds. This is what the Conference of Regions asks the Government in its opinion to the Unified Conference. If this does not happen, the Regions are ready to turn to the Constitutional Court. The autonomies’ decision comes the day following appeal signed by 14 scientists and researchers, including the Nobel Prize winner for Physics Giorgio Parisi to protect the National Health Service, and to remind the government that “we cannot do without the public health service”.

“From 1978, the date of its foundation, to 2019, the NHS in Italy contributed to producing the most marked increase in life expectancy (from 73.8 to 83.6 years) among high-income countries. But today – we read in the appeal – the data shows that the system is in crisis: decline in some health indicators, growing difficulty in accessing diagnosis and treatment paths, increase in regional and social inequalities. This happens because the costs of technological evolution, the radical epidemiological and demographic changes and the difficulties of public finance have made the NHS severely underfunded, to which 6.2% of GDP will be allocated in 2025 (less than twenty years ago)”. Signing the appeal document are Ottavio Davini, Enrico Alleva, Luca De Fiore, Paola Di Giulio, Nerina Dirindin, Silvio Garattini, Franco Locatelli, Francesco Longo, Lucio Luzzatto, Alberto Mantovani, Giorgio Parisi, Carlo Patrono, Francesco Perrone and Paolo Vineis.

“The public – the scientists write – still guarantees everyone a share of activities (emergency, acute hospitalizations), while for the rest (specialist visits, diagnostics, minor surgery) the public falls back, and citizens are forced to postpone operations or induced to resort to the private sector”. For the signatories, “health spending in Italy is not able to fully ensure compliance with the Essential Levels of Assistance (Lea) and the differentiated autonomy risks widening the gap between North and South of Italy in terms of the right to health” .

“An extraordinary plan for financing the NHS is therefore necessary and specific resources must be allocated to remove territorial imbalances. The allocation of resources must be accompanied by efficiency in their use and appropriateness in their use at a diagnostic and therapeutic level, as they are fundamental for the sustainability of the system”, continues the appeal.

The key role of healthcare personnel

“Part of the new resources – the document further underlines – must be used to intervene in depth on healthcare construction, in a country where two out of three hospitals are more than 50 years old, and one in three was built before 1940”. “But the great asset of the NHS is its staff: sophisticated equipment can be installed in a couple of years, but many more are needed to have competent healthcare professionals, who continue to train and update themselves throughout their working lives. In the current system crisis scenario, and in the face of increasingly dissatisfied citizens/patients, it is inevitable that operators are subjected to unsustainable pressure which translates into a flight from the public, especially from places of greatest tension, such as the emergency area. It is clear that wages must be adequate, but it is essential to address issues such as the valorisation of operators, their protection and the guarantee of sustainable working conditions” we read further. “For decades we have been talking regarding continuity of care (hospital-territory-home and vice versa), but progress in this direction is timid. Today the problem can no longer be postponed: in 25 years almost two out of five Italians will be over 65 (many of them suffering from at least one chronic pathology) and the system, already in serious difficulty today, will not be able to assist them”.