Also this year the Pharmaceutical bank organizes a collection of medicines, to be allocated to people in difficulty, in pharmacies throughout Italy. The day is held on 11 February, but it will be possible to buy the medicines to donate from 7 to 13 February. The medicines will be collected from one of the more than 1,800 social welfare entities affiliated with Banco Farmaceutico.
In Italy, last year, 390,000 people were unable to be treated for economic reasons, and asked for help from a social-welfare reality. There Drug collection day (Grf) an initiative that has been present in the hearts of citizens for years. However, this year, due to inflation, even non-poor people may find it difficult to donate, which is why an extra effort was required from everyone: pharmacists, volunteers and donors.
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Drugs and poverty, numbers and facts
“In the current year, people in conditions of absolute poverty are 5 million and 571 thousand people (9.4% of the resident population). About 7% of these (equal to 390,000 individuals) found themselves in conditions of health poverty. In other words, he had to ask for help from one of the 1,806 welfare organizations affiliated with Banco Farmaceutico to receive free medicines and treatments”. This was revealed by the 10th Health Poverty Report of Banco Farmaceutico, presented today, as reported by theSir agency.
“Despite the universal nature of our National Health Service (NHS), a substantial part of pharmaceutical expenditure remains the responsibility of citizens – we read -. In particular, in 2021 43.5% (i.e. 3.87 billion euros) of pharmaceutical expenditure was paid by families (+6.3% compared to 2020), with profound differences between the possibilities of poor and non-poor ones poor. An indigent person has a health budget of only 9.9 euros per month, while a non-poor person has six times as much available, i.e. 66.83 euros per month. Limiting ourselves to the budget for the purchase of medicines, the poor have only 5.85 euros available, while the non-poor have 26”.
60% of health care spending by the poor is spent on medicines compared to the equivalent 38% of non-poor households. This is because the NHS does not offer any coverage for “over the counter” medicines, having introduced no distinction between those below the poverty line and those above.
The economic difficulties “also affect non-poor families: in 2021, a total of over 4 million 768 thousand families (10 million 899 thousand people) tried to reduce health care costs (by giving up or postponing medical visits/check-ups), of which almost 639 thousand (1 million and 884 thousand people) in absolute poverty. The renunciation of care was practiced by 27 poor families out of 100 compared to 13 non-poor families out of 100, for a total of 15 families out of 100″.
“Healthcare poverty continues to be a major problem for thousands of poor families, while sacrifices and renunciations increasingly concern those who are not poor – Sergio Daniotti, president of the Banco pharmaceutical foundation -. We hope that the data in our Report will be read carefully by the institutions and that they will represent a tool for them to better understand the needs of those in difficulty and thus implement measures and policies capable of responding effectively to them”.