Regarding the long waits in healthcare against which the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci has announced a new National Plan, “there is a confused and obscure system, in which the first visits are mixed up with checks, booking diaries are closed without even give reasons, unclear relationships are created with private individuals, the IT systems do not communicate, the switchboards do not respond”. The consequence is that, as citizens report, “we also wait two months for urgent visits or two years for a screening mammogram”. This is reported in the latest Civic Health Report 2023 report presented by Cittadinanzattiva to the Ministry of Health which dates back to last year.
The report shows that for the first specialist visits in a Class B (short), to be carried out within 10 days, citizens waited up to 60 days for the first cardiology, oncology and pneumology visit. Without a priority code, you end up waiting 360 days for an endocrinological visit.
As for waiting times for specialist check-ups: a gynecological check-up with priority U (urgent), to be carried out within 72 hours, has been scheduled 60 days after the request. For a cardiological check-up with priority B (within 10 days) citizens waited 60 days.
An endocrinological visit without priority class was scheduled after 455 days, a neurological visit after 360 days.
As for diagnostic performance, 150 days were reported for a mammogram with priority B, i.e. to be carried out within 10 days, and 730 days for one in category P (programmable). The same goes for surgeries, from those for uterine cancer to hip replacements.
Furthermore, citizens “also complain about dysfunctions in access and booking services, for example caused by failure to comply with priority codes, difficulty in contacting the Cup, inability to book due to blocked waiting lists”. Finally, almost all of the Regions did not recover the late performances due to the pandemic, and not all of them used the 500 million fund allocated ad hoc in 2022: Molise invested only 1.7% of what it had available, Sardinia 26%, Sicily 28%.
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