Health. More flexibility, more resources, commitment to simplify bureaucracy. The Emilia-Romagna Region and the general practitioners’ trade unions identify measures to overcome the critical issues related to the health emergency. Donini: “Alongside family doctors to overcome the emergency and plan for the future”.
Signed an annual agreement which provides for various temporary and exceptional measures to allow family doctors to guarantee service despite staff shortages. Appointments to doctors in training, revised ceilings, more resources for nursing and administrative support.
Reduction of bureaucracy, greater resources and increase in the ceilings for patients in charge, space for doctors in training. But also support for the work of family doctors through nurses and study collaborators. These are the main points of an agreement signed yesterday by the Emilia-Romagna Region with FIMMG (Italian Federation of General Practitioners), SNAMI (National Autonomous Union of Italian Doctors), SMI (Union of Italian Doctors) and Federation of CISL Doctors to identify extraordinary measures to get out of the emergency exacerbated by the pandemic and at the same time experiment with solutions that could prove effective in the future as well.
The agreement is valid from the moment of signature until 30 June 2023, with the commitment by 31 October to return to discuss it and foresee further developments. “With this agreement we also lay the foundations for an effective ‘de-bureaucratization’ action of the activities related to care and assistance – comments the councilor for health policies Raffaele Donini -. We have listened to the voice of doctors who have asked us for more time to treat their patients and less time to devote to administrative procedures. Doctors will be able to strengthen their activities with nurses and study collaborators for which economic rewards are foreseen, we will give space to young people in training, we will encourage professionals with greater resources. The pandemic has shown how fundamental this protection is: let’s look beyond the emergency and plan to enhance it in the future “.
“As a trade union we have effectively managed to reach extraordinary agreements and with emergency purposes with the Emilia Romagna region, in a scenario strongly conditioned by the lack of human resources, put on the ropes for the management of Covid – he comments Daniele Morinifamily doctor from Faenza, Regional Secretary General FIMMG – We will finally have more tools to organize ourselves for anti Covid vaccinations and for the management of Covid patients in the area, reorganizing our clinics with nursing and administrative staff and also being able to count on young doctors who they are completing specific training in general medicine.
We have found in this regional administration a department that has finally shared with us the idea that the future of the regional and national health system is played out on the territory, on proximity, in which general practitioners are the protagonists, whose centrality in taking charge of patients was confirmed by the pandemic. The road – concludes Morini – is long, but perhaps we have laid the foundations for a concrete change for the population and for the category ”.
The agreement stems from the awareness that the additional workloads produced by the Covid-19 pandemic have put in difficulty a category already under pressure due to the shortage of staff and insufficient turnover, which complicates the work of the Ausl when they must guarantee primary assistance to citizens. To remedy this situation, action was taken on ceilings, doctors in training, support for doctors and bureaucratic simplification.
The key points of the agreement – With regard to the choice limits for general practitioners, the limit of patients that a doctor can follow in the first two years of agreement will be 1,500 people, which may rise to 1,800 from the third year. Doctors will be awarded additional resources in addition to what has already been recognized, ie 8 euros for each patient who exceeds the threshold of 1,500.
Doctors undergoing specific training in general medicine will be able to carry out the agreed activity: it will be recognized in all respects as a practical activity of the course itself, until the completion of the monthly hourly calculation required by the course of study. To allow young student-worker doctors to continue attending courses, it will also be possible to participate in theory lessons electronically. A trainee will be able to follow up to 1,000 patients in the first yearwhich rise to 1,200 from the second year. Students from the second year, however, will be able to have 1,500 clients on a voluntary basis. All are supported by a general practitioner who covers the role of tutor.
In order to guarantee the local health authorities the possibility of organizing shifts with greater flexibility – for doctors of continuity of assistance, doctors of territorial services, territorial health emergencies and assistance in prisons – it will also be possible to foresee assignments ranging from 12 to 38 hours per week. .
To support the doctor’s activity in taking care of patients, in particular chronic and complex patients, it is planned to strengthen the weekly hourly presence of study collaborators and nursing staff.
Physicians will need to ensure new hourly standards for study and nursing staff. Against this, the Region will recognize almost 13 euros for each client, instead of the current 7.50.
Finally, a permanent table will be set up involving the Region, the trade unions and the Ausl with the aim of simplifying the bureaucracy of activities related to care and assistance.
Carmine Caputo