Federation doctors (Anpo-Ascoti, Cimo, Cimop and Fesmed) are clamoring for “more funds for health in the next Budget Law” to prevent “the dismantling of hospitals and local medicine”. Then the appeal to the population: “Let’s defend public health together, we are losing an inestimable wealth”
08 NOV –
“Dear Italians, try not to get sick because soon there will be no more doctors to treat you. If you can afford health insurance, start by learning how to buy it. And if you can’t afford it, try to set aside some savings for when you have to do some analyzes, a specialist visit or an X-ray, because sooner or later you will be forced to pay for them out of your own pocket “.
This is the beginning of the letter from the doctors’ union Cimo-Fesmed Federation addressed to Italian citizens: a provocative letter, underlines the union, which nevertheless paints a future scenario not very far from what the update note of the DEF just approved by the Council of Ministers suggests. over the next three years, healthcare spending will be reduced, falling to a percentage of GDP below pre-Covid levels and leaving Italy among the European countries that spend less on healthcare. In this way, the doctors write, it will be “almost impossible to operate the homes and community hospitals envisaged by the PNRR and to overcome that ceiling on staff spending that prevents the hiring of doctors, nurses and other health professionals”.
The doctors of the union (to which the abbreviations Anpo-Ascoti, Cimo, Cimop e Fesmed) are therefore clamoring for “more funds for health in the next Budget Law” to prevent “the dismantling of hospitals and local medicine”. Otherwise, they write, “get ready for ever more crowded emergency rooms, ever longer waiting lists, ever less rapid ambulances, ever more reduced personnel”.
The letter therefore denounces years of “wrong planning, of ferocious and wicked cuts to health care in the name of an alleged rationalization and a supposed appropriateness that in reality have only drastically reduced the health supply. And there is no sign – the doctors continue – that can indicate a rethinking, a change of priorities, a turning point. Not even the rude awakening caused by the pandemic helped to understand the importance of investing in the National Health Service ”, it reads. “It seems that the discontinuity with respect to previous policies repeatedly invoked by the current government concerns all sectors except the health sector: it will not be thought that the reintegration of unvaccinated health professionals is sufficient to differentiate themselves from the other Ministers of Health“, the jab at Orazio Schillaci, who is asked for a decisive intervention.
And in the meantime, “in silence and general indifference, public health is being dismantled every day”. The doctors then promise to do battle to defend the “inestimable wealth” that is the National Health Service, asking the population for solidarity and collaboration, “because when we talk about health we talk about everyone”.
The open letter written by the doctors of the CIMO-FESMED Federation:
Dear Italians,
try not to get sick because soon there will be no more doctors to treat you. If you can afford health insurance, start inquiring about how to buy it, because in the near future the National Health Service will no longer be able to guarantee the benefits you will need. And if you can’t afford a policy, try to set aside some savings for when you have to do some analysis, a specialist visit or an X-ray, because sooner or later you will be forced to pay them out of your own pocket.
In silence and general indifference, public health is dismantled every day. Not even the rude awakening caused by the pandemic, once the moment of applause and thanks to the health personnel has passed, has not helped to understand the importance of investing in the National Health Service. The short-sighted policy continues to ignore health problems, once again at the bottom of the Government’s agenda, which plans to allocate a percentage of GDP even lower than pre-Covid levels to the protection of the health of the population, leaving us among the European countries who invest less in health.
The Update Note to the Economics and Finance Document just approved by the Council of Ministers in fact further resizes health expenditure for the next three years, making it almost impossible to operate the homes and community hospitals envisaged by the PNRR and exceed that expenditure ceiling at the personnel that prevent you from hiring doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
So, dear Italians, get ready for ever more crowded emergency rooms, ever longer waiting lists, ever less rapid ambulances, ever more reduced personnel. These are the effects of years of wrong planning, of ferocious and nefarious cuts to health care in the name of an alleged rationalization and a supposed appropriateness, which in reality have only drastically reduced the health supply. And there is no sign that can indicate a rethinking, a change of priorities, a turning point. It seems that the discontinuity with respect to the previous policies repeatedly invoked by the current government concerns all sectors except the health sector: it will not be thought that the reintegration of unvaccinated health professionals is sufficient to differentiate themselves from the other Ministers of Health.
We doctors and health professionals are victims of this system as much as you are. The main cause of the discomfort you have to suffer every time you go to an ASL, a hospital or an emergency room is the lack of doctors and health professionals. We are too few to do everything, but in order to try to help everyone we work in dramatic conditions, unsustainable for long periods, covering shifts for 15-18 hours, without being able to enjoy rest and holidays, with the fear that fatigue will lead us to err. And as soon as there is a possibility of escape from public hospitals we are forced to grasp it reluctantly, because this is the life we had chosen to lead and loved. A life that has unfortunately become unacceptable, which puts our own health at risk.
For years we have been repeating, unheard, that we need to reverse the course. We hoped, deluded, that Covid-19 had made it clear once and for all the importance of a universal, public, safe and quality health service. Not only for the protection of health referred to by the Constitution as a fundamental right of the individual and in the interest of the community, but also for the correct functioning of the country’s production system. We were wrong, so it was not.
Dear Italians, we doctors do not intend to surrender to what appears to be an inevitable defeat of public health. So we also ask for your solidarity, because when we talk about health, we talk about everyone: each of us could wake up tomorrow in the guise of a patient. The contribution of the entire population is therefore essential: without realizing it we are losing an inestimable wealth. Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen. We are clamoring for more funds for health in the next Budget Law, we are preventing the dismantling of hospitals and local medicine. Let’s unite and together defend the National Health Service.
08 November 2022
© All rights reserved
Other articles in Jobs and Professions
