the BDC
From waiting lists to access services, to exhausted medical and nursing staff, to non-renewed contracts and insufficient resources to cope with the progressive aging of our population and therefore the growing demand for treatment for chronic diseases. A single voice of doctors and patients today in Rome launches an appeal to politics and does not rule out more impactful measures in case they are not listened to urgently
16 MAG –
Stop the drift towards which our National Health Service is heading, with very long waiting lists to access services, exhausted medical and nursing staff, non-renewed contracts and insufficient resources to cope with the progressive aging of our population and therefore of the growing request for treatment for chronic diseases. This is the appeal that comes from the trade unions, which represent over 120,000 medical, veterinary and health managers employed by the NHS, but also from citizens’ and patient associations, which are asking all political forces for a clear commitment to defend the public health system and universal, through a manifesto presented today in Rome, in the Sala Capranichetta.
The manifesto will be followed by a series of initiatives with demonstrations on 15 June in 8 Italian cities, and a larger mobilization planned for September in Rome. But the trade union organizations are clear: more drastic measures such as lo are not excluded strike. “With today we start the mobilization and our main goal is to involve citizens – he says Pierino Di Silverio, national secretary Anaao-Assomed – to awaken their consciences and make them aware of our battles, which are also their battles and they are certainly realizing it: every day we know more and more that we are unable to provide the right assistance to patients that we are facing. But the doctors’ strike is a tool that we do not exclude, just as we do not exclude any weapon to make us listen and to change things”. And on the contractual renewal Di Silverio assures: “It will have to be a courageous contract: I don’t go to my members to say I signed just to sign”. “We ask for the umpteenth time a commitment from the political forces and we will never get tired of doing it. This time however, we want to involve the citizens who, together with us, are the terminal link of a series of political choices that have been made in the past”, echoes him Guido Quicipresident of the Cimo-Fesmed federation.
According to the abbreviations that sign the manifesto – ANAAO ASSOMED; CIMO-FESMED (ANPO-ASCOTI – CIMO – CIMOP – FESMED); AAROI-EMAC; FASSID (AIPAC-AUPI-SIMET-SINAFO-SNR); FP CGIL DOCTORS AND NHS MANAGERS; FVM; NATIONAL COORDINATION OF MEDICAL, VETERINARY AND HEALTH CONTRACT AREAS UIL FPL; MEDICAL CISL; ADMO; AISLA; AISTOM; ETS FRIENDS; ANED; ANLAIDS; APSILEF; APMARR; COPD PATIENT ASSOCIATION; ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP; EUROPE WOMAN ITALY; SMA FAMILIES; HONEYCOMB; FEDERASMA AND ALLERGIES; FINCOPP ODV; TRANSPLANT FORUM; NADIR ETS; UILDM – “a process of deconstruction of the public National Health Service has been underway for some time which, in fact, has undermined sustainability, equity and access to treatment, making an inalienable asset such as the health of the Italians. It seems superfluous to recall how the storm of the Covid-19 pandemic has accentuated the fragility of the NHS, acting as an accelerator of existing phenomena and definitively changing the scenario in which we operate. Italy is lagging behind in terms of healthcare spending in Europe, both in terms of per capita values at purchasing power parity, and as a percentage of GDP, with a dizzying gap compared to reference countries such as France and Germany. The decades-long definancing reserved for the public health system and its employees has produced not only a continuous narrowing of the public perimeter of the health service, with the progressive privatization of health services, but even an exponential growth of the private sector contracts for professionals, increasingly rarely willing to start or continue working in public structures, in the face of wages with ever lower purchasing power and ever worsening working conditions. But in addition to adequate funding, we cannot imagine healthcare without a serious reform that addresses both the hospital and territorial emergency. The hospital crisis does not end with the emergency rooms, the only alternative to the endless waiting lists, overcrowded with patients but supported by a few doctors and health professionals at the end of their strength. And that of the territory manifests itself with extended geographical areas without referring doctors and social support for patients with chronic, often not self-sufficient, disabling diseases. These emergencies, however, do not appear among the priority interventions on the political agenda. The right to health, which the Constitution wants to be one and indivisible, is today declined in 21 different ways, the cause of those inequalities in access to care that force patients to make journeys of hope along the South-North gradient, while the processes of autonomy differentiated treatment initiated by national governments and regions will dramatically accentuate the differences between social groups and geographical areas, transforming the right to health into a luxury good that will force citizens to pay for treatment out of pocket or to give up access to treatment when they cannot afford it. Today, citizens’ right to health is closely intertwined with the professional destiny of all healthcare workers in the NHS. Therefore the battle in defense of public health is everyone’s battle. Only if we are united can we win it. With this objective, the trade unions, citizens’ and patients’ associations and professional representatives are launching a mobilization which, starting with the torchlight vigils on May 3, in honor and memory of Barbara Capovani, through this initiative on May 16 and the next ones on June 15, will lead to a National Demonstration in September in Rome. So that the flight of the bumblebee, the metaphor used to define the NHS at birth, can continue, apparently in spite of the laws of physics, to go back to considering the resources allocated for the health of citizens as an investment and not as an expendable expense, which decades of cuts have proved to be a counterproductive choice also from an economic point of view. A ‘road map’ to save the National Health Service, which starts today in Rome with a national conference on public health, will then see demonstrations in 8 cities on June 15 and a major national event in September, not excluding a strike. The organizations gathered in the medical Interunion, which represents over 120,000 medical, veterinary and health managers, and citizens’ and patients’ associations, are asking all political forces for a clear commitment in defense of the public and universal NHS”.
“It is necessary to invest in health as a fundamental asset, in a path that starts from prevention to get to treatment and rehabilitation, networking all the services: territory, hospital, primary and specialist care. But that’s not enough: we need to go further and promote health in schools, universities, workplaces and in the family.It is, in fact, a transversal value that crosses the lives of people, communities, and whose reduction or absence puts economies and social,” he said Andrew Philippi, National Secretary Fp Cgil Doctors and SSN Executives. “Today, unfortunately, the models are measured against the fact that the disease represents a cost for the public system and a profit for the private sector, with a logic that determines its unsustainability and puts the NHS increasingly at risk due to the continuous cuts in resources and personnel,” Filippi noted. “We need to build a model that promotes health before treatment, recompose the network of social and health services so as not to leave professionals alone who must instead be supported and valued even economically, curbing the escape from public services and the worsening of the phenomenon of ‘token holders’ , wanted first of all by Regions and Companies. We must build an alliance between all operators and with people, for a mobilization in defense of the public, universal, fair, supportive NHS “, he concludes.
“Today it is a call to attention compared to an increasingly reduced NHS to be a way for the private sector to find profit with services to replace what the public is unable to provide, due to decades of indiscriminate cuts”, adds Alexander Vergallo, AAROI-EMAC National President. “Policies aimed at enhancing personnel are scarce and we find fewer and fewer doctors willing to remain in the public sector and who prefer rather than being hired by the private sector. After today, initiatives are planned to follow where all the representatives, but also the citizens, will be called together, and we certainly don’t rule out a strike, on the contrary, if there is not a sharing of all the acronyms, I think we will also be willing to individual initiative.
Per Annalisa Mandorino, secretary of Cittadinanzattiva, “it is evident, as we have also pointed out in recent days with the ‘Health Urgency’ initiative, the priority that solving these problems has for Italian citizens. We also presented our 23rd report on the state of the NHS and problems such as access, waiting lists, the lack of territorial assistance and the possibility of carrying out adequate prevention are highlighted here too. These serious problems must be resolved immediately and the primacy of the NHS must be reaffirmed, which is the only way we have to overcome the inequalities between citizens”.
16 maggio 2023
© breaking latest news
Other articles in Work and Professions
