On the Minister’s table the requests of the Regions in a twenty-five page document.
During the summit, the Sardinia Region paid particular attention to the proposals of Ministerial Decree 71, the regulatory act that will define the future of local health, or the new structure of non-hospital care and assistance services, a plan closely coordinated with the PNRR investment.
“The request for this meeting has matured within the Health Commission of the Conference of the Regions. Ministerial Decree 71 has already undergone several changes, compared to the first draft, however, there continue to be some points on which we have asked the Government to clarify ”, declares the councilor of Health of the Sardinia Region, Mario Nieddu. “The biggest doubts concern the adequacy of the human and financial resources necessary to implement the new structure of territorial medicine”.
In particular, the exponent of the Giunta Solinas stressed the uncertainties that still weigh on the future classification of general practitioners: “Family doctors – he explains – are indicated as a fundamental element for the functioning of community hospitals. To allow healthcare companies to be able to plan their work and therefore have it available in the structure, the best way would be to have a quasi-subordinate employment relationship, therefore different from the current free professional relationship. However, on a national level the discussions with the category have not yet produced results and there is a lack of guidelines from the Ministry. Without the possibility of employing general practitioners, the new territorial medicine would start ‘incomplete’ “.
In terms of funding: “Although the resources destined for interventions for the construction of community hospitals have been defined, technological modernization and the development of telemedicine, with a forecast that does not take into account the current increase in costs, there is still a lack of indications on the financial coverage for the personnel that will need to be integrated into the new structure. An additional cost of several billion euros is estimated at national level which is not reflected in the current coverage, also due to the fact that the rules on sources of financing and expenditure ceilings have not been changed, stopped since 2004, except for the exceptions launched for the Covid emergency “.
With regard to today’s meeting, Councilor Nieddu states: “We had a positive conversation with the Minister. Of course, important knots remain to be resolved. The future of Sardinian healthcare and of the whole country passes through local medicine ”.