Who can pay is taken care of: diagnostic tests and urgent visits yes, but only by private individuals. Because the public health of Sardinia is collapsing and the health system is increasingly reminiscent of the stars and stripes. Workforce reduced to the bone, endless waiting lists, dismantled services they force the sick to put their wallet in hand: be it for an X-ray, a specialist visit or even a 400 euro magnetic resonance scan.
But now there are those who say enough is enough and propose to present the bill to the Region. “We flood the offices of our administrators with invoices for paid services, with the related reimbursement requests”: the idea was launched Giorgio Madeddu, family doctor tired of having to witness the discomforts of his patients. “I feel indebted to them because, moreover, they are the ones who guarantee me my salary. It is unacceptable that they are forced to rely on private health care because they do not receive adequate responses, even in time, from public health. Reimbursing them for the expenses incurred, not by choice but by compulsion, seems to me the minimum. And I would also add the costs to move from one end of the island to the other “.
That of Madeddu (who has made solidarity a life mission and not surprisingly is also the founder and scientific director of an association with self-help groups, called “Friends of life”) is not a facade proposal, but has the ambition to be carried out with the involvement of the mayors of the whole of Sardinia. That’s why he sent a formal letter to the presidents of Anci and Cal, Emiliano Deiana and Andrea Soddu (the latter is also the mayor of Nuoro), asking for their help. “The mayors could collect all the certifications of the assessments, the non-compliance with the diagnostic priorities and the invoices for the various services. The next step would be to present to the Region, claiming immediate reimbursement, the invoices advanced by Sardinian sick and disabled, certainly deserving of greater attention and respect than those currently reserved for them “.
Giorgio Madeddu then highlights his disappointment, both human and professional: “My everyday life crosses illness and disability, I experience agony and anger when my patients in precarious conditions, recognized by the legislator as exempt from health care costs, do not receive adequate diagnostic assistance and free therapeutic speed. I would like to point out that 30 per cent of my clients (but also of the other centers) probably do not find answers in the territorial diagnostic offer to the “urgent” requests from me but also from the specialists that the private healthcare consulted suggests “. Then he adds: “I do not intend to dwell on decadence and inadequacy of the hospitals that both of you have recently reported and frighten the consciences of those who consider them indispensable for the community, especially for the less economically sound and less protected from health patronage, who have been practicing for some time “.
Meanwhile street protests continue. On Saturday 13 thousands of citizens attended two events organized in Nuoro by “Vivere a colori”, association of cancer patients, and by Cgil, Cisl and Uil of pensioners, but also by the “Sos Barbagia Mandrolisai” committee. Impressive initiative, to once again launch a strong cry of pain for the sick healthcare that denies the right to health, as highlighted by the women of “Living in color”. “We are forced to go to private individuals or travel hundreds of kilometers, otherwise we cannot be cured. The San Francesco hospital is in collapse and the territorial medicine services have disappeared ”. But Nuoro is not an exception and the crowd from the rest of Sardinia (Ogliastra, Goceano, but also Sulcis Iglesiente and Campidano) is a dramatically eloquent example of this.