Two years have passed since Health Minister Roberto Speranza triumphantly announced billionaire investments that would have brought the public health budget to 120 billion euros. Today, a distant memory remains of those promises, while the reality of the state of the National Health Service is rendered in its raw numbers by a report released by CIMO-FESMED, the federation to which 14 thousand health workers adhere: from 2010 to 2020 in Italy 111 were closed. hospitals and 113 emergency rooms, with a total of 37,000 beds lost. In hospitals, over 29,000 professionals are missing, including 4,311 doctors. Numbers that, in cascade, have led to a “drastic reduction in health care”.
Dal Dossier Health: Red Alert, drawn up by the CIMO-FESMED Federation, the data are interesting for what we all call today health crisis. Not enough beds, a shortage of health personnel and a clean cut in services are all important elements in terms of the strength of public health. Healthcare envied by many countries for its being public and universal, but given the data, how long will the situation be sustainable?
The analysis is based on the economic accounts of the state region, on the annual account of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, on the annual reports of the Ministry of Health, and on Istat studies. From the data collected, in the last ten years there has been a drastic decrease in the number of beds and hospital facilities. In particular, in this decade, 11 hospitals have closed their doors, 100 directly managed hospitals, 113 emergency rooms of which 10 are pediatric and 85 mobile resuscitation units have been deactivated. It appears from the data that public hospitals have lost -38,684 beds, while private ones have gained +1,747. The closure of the hospitals also has a serious impact on staff, which has a loss of 29,284 professionals, of which 4,311 are doctors. These data do not consider the hires that took place in 2020 with the Covid19 pandemic, during which we had a great demonstration of how much the cuts and closures have represented a serious problem.
Therefore, counting the drastic decrease in hospital structures and the cut in beds lhealth supply has lost a considerable value. In fact, in the last ten years 700 doctors on the medical service have been cut, which has led to a decrease in interventions, ie -1,498 less per 100,000 inhabitants. This figure also represented an increase in the clinical complexity of patients, which led to an increase in hospitalizations, 55 more per 100,000 inhabitants. The situation is also drastic in the emergency room, where in 2010 there were over 22.4 million patients treated, which in 2019 becomes 2 million fewer visits. They still drop in 2020 to 8.8 million less, the year in which, thanks to Covid, many patients were pushed to avoid accessing the emergency room. In doing so, many medical visits or important diagnoses were avoided or delayed, underestimating the clinical severity of the disease. Between 2010 and 2020 the death rate increased by + 85%. Local assistance is also scandalous, the healthcare offer of which has been reduced by 282.8 million services since 2010. Clinical activity in the laboratory also decreased by 32%, or -63.9 million.
In conclusion, the analysis carried out by CIMO-FESMED clearly shows that in the last decade the financing of the National Health Service has grown by 16.4% (+18.548 billion). At the same time, however, health expenditure increased by 15,744 billion, causing a positive balance of 2.8 billion. This balance is, however, for 20% favored by the reduction in the cost of doctors. However, these numbers are linked to the cost of health goods, not services. This, together with the non-exercise of many services companies, therefore make the scarce economic commitment on means and human resources more than evident. Finally, health activity data demonstrate one health crisis which is now breaking all limits and which now appears to be collapsing.
[di Marina Lombardi]