If given the chance, one third of Italian doctors would retire immediately. Paradoxically, it is above all young people who want it: 25% of doctors between 25 and 34 years and 31% of those between 35 and 44 years. It is one of the data that summarizes the fatigue of Italian doctors two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic as it emerges from the survey conducted by the Piepoli Institute on input from Fnomceo and presented today in Rome, as part of the National Conference on the Medical Issue promoted precisely to turn the spotlight on the working conditions of Italian medical professionals.
The question for all health professionals
During the Conference, a 20-point Manifesto was presented, shared by the National Federation of Medical Orders (Fnomceo) and by all the signatory medical and dental unions, for a new National Health Service. From the shortage of doctors to burnout, from the recognition of rights to the revision of training courses, from workplace safety to contractual agreements, there are many issues on which – according to doctors – it is urgent to intervene.
“The increase in the National Health Fund – observed the president of Fnomceo, Filippo Anelli, in his speech – a similar commitment was not paid, aimed at removing the consequences on the medical profession of that season of cuts in health that today all together we condemn. “Today an extraordinary intervention is needed by the State and the Regions to fill the gaps and restore the role it deserves to the medical profession”.
Pediatricians: starting from proximity
Pediatricians also share the 20 points of the Manifesto fully: “Let’s not waste the open crisis with the pandemic”, said the president of the Italian Federation of Pediatricians. Antonio D’Avino. “We start from the centrality of proximity and the need to safeguard the specific model of the pediatrician of free choice, identified by families in the context of a relationship of trust, an indispensable figure to guarantee the growth of a healthy child”.
Shortage of doctors and training
The Manifesto points to the most critical issues starting from the shortage of doctors which – the document reads – “must be addressed by eliminating the ceiling on the 2004 fund (- 4%), doubling the grants for Specific Training and increasing its attractiveness, with the ‘objective of a correct planning of the workforce. It is also essential to define the economic resources for the renewal of the National Collective Labor Agreement and the Acn for medical personnel, also through the release of the expenditure ceiling of the accessory salary and the implementation certainty of decentralized contracts. provide, for private employees, homogeneous contractual agreements within the NHS.
A tiring job
To weigh like a boulder on the profession is the human and psychological aspect as well as the always excessive workload. “Ensuring the psychophysical well-being of all doctors – reads the Manifesto signed by 15 medical and dental unions – will be possible by guaranteeing adequate health and administrative personnel. the skills of the doctors of the 118 Service and the Emergency Department, as well as the regulatory recognition of the professionalization and assistance activities of colleagues in training “.
An Observatory on the protection of rights
For this reason, the doctors are asking for the establishment of a National Observatory on the protection of rights and working conditions with the trade unions at the Ministry of Health and the recognition of the peculiarity of the condition of women. “We want safety in the workplace, the recognition of burnout as an occupational disease and the revision of training courses to be oriented in taking charge and in the care of the person in his specificity, rather than only in the generalized approach to the disease”, they specify the doctors in the Manifesto.
De-bureaucratize medicine
But doctors are also asking for the simplification of processes in order to be able to respond more quickly to the needs of patients. In particular, the opening of a permanent discussion table between the Ministry of Health and Fnomceo is requested to enhance the medical role in five steps: by de-bureaucratising the medical act (Therapeutic Plans) and simplifying the authorization procedures for the exercise of the profession. ; enhancing the social role of the doctor also through regulatory provisions; ensuring greater incisiveness to the profession in the governance of the NHS; safeguarding professional autonomy; protecting the act in telemedicine processes.
Finally, all the trade unions declare that they support the request of Fnomceo, to expand the Lea in dentistry and to favor the free choice of the treating doctor even in the treatment paths provided by insurance and supplementary health care.
Pediatricians serving families
Requests shared by the Fimp which is keen to specify: “The free choice pediatrician works in synergy with the family, the primary nucleus responsible for the health of the newborn, with the role of co-author of the health of the child and of the man and woman of tomorrow. Not we must forget it and we must protect this condition of autonomy which also guarantees therapeutic continuity “, explained D’Avino, concluding:” Health literacy, prevention, nutrition, treatment of pathologies and health protection are in the hands of the family pediatrics. part, but in order for the indications contained in Ministerial Decree 71 not to remain a dream book and, for example, the Community Houses to be established do not remain cathedrals in the desert, an important allocation and serious planning of resources is necessary, in a perspective of solid sustainability “.