The first budget law after the Covid tsunami leaves Healthcare practically dry-mouthed. The maneuver puts two billion more on the plate for Italian care for 2023, but most of the resources (1.4 billion) will be used to cover bills and hospital energy costs while the rest of the funds it will not even cover the increase in costs due to inflation. The only signal sent to exhausted healthcare personnel after more than two years of the pandemic is the extra money for the paychecks of doctors and nurses who work in emergency rooms, but these increases will not be seen by healthcare professionals before 2024.
The extra money absorbed by expensive utility bills
The maneuver allocates 2 billion more for 2023. This means that the National Health Fund – the one that distributes resources to the Regions to pay for treatment for Italians – will rise to 128 billion next year. A mini increase that is not even worth 2% of the Fund itself with the aggravating circumstance that the same increase will be absorbed largely by the expensive bills of the hospitals which certainly cannot turn off the lights or the machinery they have in the ward: of the 2 billion more allocated from the budget law, in fact, an important portion of 1.4 billion “is destined to help face the higher costs determined by the increase in the prices of energy sources”. This is a breath of fresh air for the Regions also grappling with the coverage of the extra costs for the Covid which has presented a very high bill and which has yet to find a solution (at least 3 billion are missing). But this means that for next year’s Healthcare grappling with the recovery of treatment after the tsunami of the pandemic, there will be crumbs – 600 million – which do not even cover inflation. Therefore, at least one refinancing of the plan for the recovery of waiting lists is missing.
Heavier payrolls in the emergency room, but only from 2024
The new Minister of Health Horace Schillaci he had immediately promised to reward the health personnel after two years of the pandemic. And this first signal comes in the maneuver where the indemnity is expected to be strengthened (based on the resources of the National Health Fund) for doctors and nurses who work in emergency rooms. There are 200 million on the track to make payrolls rise, but the increases will, however, only take place from 2024. The extra money will be assigned – reads the draft of the maneuver – “within the respective collective labor agreements, within the limits of the gross annual amounts of 60 million euros for medical management and 140 million euros for personnel in the health sector based on their actual presence in service, effective from 1 January 2024″. The fund to reward those who work in emergency rooms where for years there has been a flight of doctors fleeing stress and exhausting schedules was set up by the former Minister of Health Robert Hope with 90 million and is now being boosted by his successor Schillaci.
“Health care remains out of the country’s priorities”
“Public health continues to remain out of the country’s priorities – he warns Nino Cartabellotta, President of the Gimbe Foundation – despite the enormous critical issues that have exploded with the pandemic. In fact, if in the darkest moments all the political forces converged on the need to relaunch the NHS, with the end of the emergency, healthcare has “returned to the ranks”, as demonstrated first by the lack of attention in electoral programs, then by the absence of a government plan for public health and, lastly, by the failure to increase funding in the 2023 Budget Law presented by the Executive: that is, no further investment in people’s health“. For Cartabellotta, the extra 2 billion are largely insufficient because it is a figure «which in addition to being eroded by inflation will not allow the extraordinary costs due to the pandemic and the energy crisis to be covered, nor to start any relaunch of the NHS. With the result of sending even the most virtuous Regions “in the red”, with inevitable consequences on the provision of the quality of assistance ».