Il National Health Service still suffers from the enormous effort perpetrated during the endless months of pandemic, waiting lists in hospitals and the sharply declining number of specialist visits continue to suffer the most. A utopia to be able to access free of charge (and within the correct time) the various health services: two years of waiting are necessary to undergo the mammography examination; for a removal of a tumor of the uterus to be done urgently (within 30 days), about three months; for a gynecological visit to be carried out within 72 hours, 2 months; cardiologist visit? Also two months, when instead it should be done within 10 days.
For the “Civic Health Report 2023″ by Active citizenship no first ‘class U’ visit (ie urgent to be carried out within 72 hours) was scheduled on schedule. Patients followed up by the cardiology, endocrinology, oncology and pulmonology departments have waited, with priority, even 60 days, without it, the waits exceed a year. Sixty days for urgent specialist visits or category B, up to 181 for the first neurological visits, 90 for eye visits for which, without priority, one remains in limbo for up to 455 days. Time wasted waiting for a class B mammogram adds up to 150 days.
Among all the stories behind these numbers is that of father of a child 4-year-old boy suffering from congenital heart disease, who is unable to book the six-monthly check-ups for his son through the Ssn, so he addresses the intramoenia. The man contacted the single booking center of his region but no structure was available to carry out the visit in the 72 hours foreseen. So the father of the child turned to one private facility.
The only alternative that remains for many, almost all, those who want to make visits on time. Everyone who can afford it. In fact, those who cannot, give up treatment. This trend is confirmed by Istat data referring to the year 2022 which reveal how the share of people who underwent specialist visits rose from 42.3 per cent in 2019 to 38.8 per cent in 2022, at the same time as an increase in those who declared they had paid intramural visits, which went from 37 per cent to over 41 in the same period of time.
From Cittadinanzattiva they recall how the lengths of waiting lists are nothing new, even if the pandemic has aggravated the situation that has not yet recovered. The regions have spent – according to the report – only 69 percent of the 500 million made available to recover the lost benefits. For these reasons, the women and men of Cittadinanzattiva have called a mobilization in Rome for Saturday 11 from 2 pm in front of the Ministry of Health to give voice to citizens’ difficulties in accessing health services in their territories.