GPs will work on Saturdays. A (small) help in the emergency room

There is a bit of excitement among the white coats, in the new organization of territorial medicine they have been asked to open the clinics also on Saturday mornings.

On the basis of national agreements, thanks to a recent integration at the regional level, from 2023 general practitioners have to organize new networks, each ready to cover a small territory, for example our city is divided into three parts. In each network, groups of white coats are called to guarantee continuous assistance, through the 118 and medical guards at night, but also by alternately expanding the openings of the clinics, for example on Saturday mornings.

Many patients complain about the lack of holiday references

It is not a distant and future change, applications have already been closed to identify the referring doctors of each network and in recent days the white coats have met with Ats Insubria.

As is well known, many Como patients complain because they do not have a reference on holidays, many, even for trivial problems, are forced to go to the increasingly clogged emergency room.

“This is an old law that now Lombardy has included in a supplementary agreement – explains the doctor Massimo Gatto, doctor from Como and provincial secretary of the Italian medical union SMI -. In turn, the doctors of the same network will have to open their offices on Saturdays, also responding to visits from their colleagues’ clients. In theory, doctors who had already gathered in cooperatives and associations in the past could do so. These new networks are now concrete, they are not futuristic ideas like community houses, which for now in the absence of personnel are not really born “. Community houses can still be exploited by doctors to give the new networks a physical location. In technical terms these realities have been called Aft, yet another acronym that stands for territorial functional aggregation. From next year, the management of basic medicine will pass from Ats to Asst.

Part of the doctors expressed satisfaction that funds were recognized for hiring administrative staff. Others, on the other hand, fear a new hourly workload.

«The community houses? Empty boxes

«The community houses are still empty boxes – comments Giuseppe Enrico Rivolta, member of the Order of Doctors of Como and regional secretary of Snami, the union of family doctors – these networks are an attempt to reorganize medicine in the area. With groups of doctors who carry out additional activities together, with incentives to have the support of administrative staff ».

“The public health setting of the last thirty years has not borne fruit – says Giuseppe Callisto, referent for health for the public service of the CGIL of Como – today there is a shortage of doctors, even in hospitals, with emergency rooms taken by storm. There are so many good intentions that have not been implemented. There is no direction that listens and makes things work ».