The cases of psychiatric disorders due to the pandemicthe demand for specialist assistance increases but the number of psychiatrists Italians on duty. They will even be 1,000 fewer, between retirements and resignations.
An all-Italian paradox also that of the funds destined for the treatment and functioning of the mental health sector: zero in the NRP, with a steep drop in those provided by the National Health Fund (they were 3.5% in 2018, plummeted to 2.75% in 2020).
In short, the situation is dramatic. Thus 10 scientific societies sound the alarm and ask for the immediate establishment of an ad hoc National Agency. Italy, warns the alliance of scientific societies (including the Italian Society of Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry and the Italian Federation of Operators of the Departments and Services of Addiction FeDerSerD) is “Among the last in Europe” for mental health despite an estimated 30% increase in diagnoses of depression and other mental illnesses caused by a two-year pandemic, especially among young people and students.
We therefore move towards “the impossibility of guaranteeing minimum services in a sector that was already on its knees before the pandemic”. The investments, explain the psychiatrists, “should have grown to at least 5% of the national health fund, to reach the 10% target indicated in the EU for high-income countries. Instead, slowly, they are disappearing. This “impoverishment of public services – points out Massimo di Giannantonio, president of the Italian Society of Psychiatry – now under the threshold of survival, means that the possibility of early intervention is also reduced, putting prevention activities in serious difficulty”.
Last updated: Wednesday 25 May 2022, 07:42
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