at Antonio Panti
31 GEN –
Dear Director,
I totally agree with Ivan Cavicchi’s “letter to health care”, which appeared yesterday on QS and, not by self-citation but because the time for defending the service is running out, I can only repeat what I wrote on QS on 11/29/22. “Upstream of all the discussions on the structure of the Services, health professionals should force the Government to establish as a priority some very few fundamental points.
First, the financing, i.e. the guarantee that it will not fall below the percentage of GDP of the major European states, whatever the tax regime adopted; second, the limits to regional autonomy in order to guarantee equality between citizens; thirdly, the ban on the “turnkey” assignment of service sectors to the private sector, replacing the public sector or distorting its programming constraints; fourth, the legislative definition of professional governance.
Healthcare professionals need to realize that. if the common problems are not resolved within a very short time, the NHS may find itself faced with unsolvable difficulties: privatization, reduction of the LEA, going into a personnel crisis, fragmenting into twenty republics.
Maybe only a close alliance with citizens could try to save public health.”
Since then, in addition to last December’s demonstration, heartfelt appeals and danger signals have multiplied. I recall what Senator Monti claims, again on QS: reducing state revenues to pay electoral debts will inevitably lead to the deterioration of public services.
The more you privatize, the more general health deteriorates, the data on the relationship between public or private services, mortality and the incidence of chronic diseases are now common heritage. So why don’t you react?
We can give sociological or political interpretations, between resignation and indifference, between defense of rights and decadence of values in the civilization of consumption. But the most banal utilitarianism should push health professionals to “take up arms against a lot of trouble” before they take advantage of our distraction and take our jobs away: creative disruption!
And it would be a grave mistake to react alone. It is essential to involve Patients’ Associations and Workers’ Unions. It is all too easy to explain what each would lose with creeping privatisation. School and health are the cornerstones of modern social security.
When some Order Presidents still discuss the role of nurses while not only are doctors and nurses missing but the house is on fire, one thinks that whoever is the cause of his pain is crying for himself.
It seems wonderful to me that no one thinks of a call to arms. “Take Your Lordship, then…” What is the lack of a leader like in Machiavelli’s time? This is not the problem. It looks more like the famous question of Renzo’s capons.
Also yesterday QS publishes the heartfelt Lancet editorial on the state of the English NHS. It is a superimposable picture; it is necessary to rediscover the moral sense of the struggle for rights and the civic sense of the common good. Certainly there is not much time left to lose but it is worth a try. In the face of looming problems, the call for unity has the flavor of the last call.
Antonio Panti
January 31, 2023
© breaking latest news
Other articles in Letters to the editor
