In Italy, the health emergency continues to be tackled with restrictions on personal freedoms,
ma health is collapsing. To further highlight the crisis in the National Health System are the resignations of 6 doctors from the Careggi hospital who resigned from the emergency room due, they argue, to unsustainable workloads. Forced to work every Saturday and Sunday, every public holiday, five nights a month, with double shifts, with the risk of burnout syndrome and without adequate financial recognition.
The drastic reduction of beds and of medical and nursing staff was achieved through political choices based on “rigor of accounts”. A study by the Gimbe Foundation calculated in 37 billion euros for cuts made by the Monti government onwards, although apparently it would seem the opposite. In fact, between 2011 and 2020, health expenditure increased from 105.6 billion to 114.4, with an annual increase of 0.8%, but, in this same period, inflation increased by 1.07%. every year. In fact, therefore, less has been spent since the economist Mario Monti, with Salva Italia, carried out a spending review. From the statistical yearbook of the Ministry of Health of 2017 it appears that the National Health Service has 191 thousand beds available, while the report of the Gimbe Foundation reveals that over the course of a decade, 70,000 beds disappeared. According to the study center of the parliamentary office, Italy is far lower than the other countries of the Old Continent: 3.2 beds per 1000 inhabitants against 5 per 1000 of the European average (2017 data).