“In defense of the national health service”, demonstrations in Milan and Bari. Garattini: “Intramoenia shame to change”

“In Defense of the National Health Service”. There are two events – Milano e Bari – within the framework of the ‘As healthy as a fish?’ mobilization, promoted among others by Democratic Medicine, the Dico 32 Campaign, the Forum for the Right to Health, the European Network Against the Commercialization of Health. According to the organizers, almost 3,000 people arrived in Piazza Duomo in the Lombard capital. The event is part of the European Day against the commercialization of health on 7 April. In the square there are flags of the Italian Left, a large banner of the Milan Democratic Party, flags of the Greens and the 5 Star Movement. “Today, on the one hand, we are addressing the citizens whom we ask to mobilize because the risk is that the national health service will disappear forever – explained Vittorio Agnoletto of Democratic Medicine -. And we turn to the regional and national institutions which must intervene immediately to solve the problem of waiting lists. All accredited private facilities must provide visits and exams with the same waiting time for those arriving with the public health service and for those arriving privately. But it cannot be the wallet that decides whether one can be cured or not”. At the end of the mobilization “a very sad competition will be launched and more or less every week we will declare the winner, that is whoever has the longest waiting lists – concluded Agnoletto -. To date there is a record in Milan which concerns 50 months of waiting for a prostatectomy“.

On stage speeches by personalities from the world of medicine such as Silvio Garattini, or representatives of the health unions of other European countries connected by France and Belgium. “The National Health Service is a great asset that we must preserve and improve not only for ourselves but it is very important that we do it for our children and grandchildren – underlined the president and founder of the Institute for Pharmacological Research Mario Negri from the stage -. We have to improve it because we have seen during the Covid that it has weaknesses ”. The first thing to change that is wrong, according to Garattini, is the intramoenia regime, which allows a doctor to carry out visits even in a private regime and not only with the national health service. “If you go to the hospital to book an exam or a visit, you are told to come in three months, four months, six months depending on the case – he continued -. But by paying, with the same people and the same facilities, you can have it all next week. This is intramoenia, the presence of the private in the public, a shame that we must change because we cannot maintain this situation of inequality. I hope – he concluded – that doctors of democratic medicine and those who have joined this mobilization will go on strike for even just one hour because this situation shouldn’t exist”.

To bear his testimony too Francesca Colciaghivice president of Arsi, Association of Health Researchers in Italy, who told the difficult story job precariousness of researchers in Italy, who also earn much less than their colleagues from other European countries. The actor too Moni Ovadia joined the mobilization. “The process that is taking place is to bring our healthcare to private and reduce the public to being irrelevant, like in the United States – she commented -. This means privatizing health and therefore human beings”. On stage a large banner with the inscription: “Health is not a commodity. Healthcare is not a company”.

A thousand people in the square in Bari. Many doctors, from the various provinces of Puglia, “but also citizens and a good representation of study collaborators”. “There was a large participation in today’s event – the national secretary of the Federation of general practitioners (Fimmg), Silvestro Scotti tells beraking latest news Salute – But beyond the more regional connotation, with a family medicine in which investments are no longer being made, there is also an evident attention and concern that has a national value because all this takes place in a Region in which the Governor is also the vice-president of the Conference of Regions”. Also for this reason, “we expect more comprehensive answers from today’s event: land Regions cannot continue to complain about a lack of resources but not confront each other, to obtain the resources themselves, with the professional forces on possible solutions”, adds Scotti. And there is no shortage of examples of limited attention to the territory for Scotti: “we are in March and, for the umpteenth time, the Regions have not yet published the three-year calls for family doctors. And then we complain about the lack of professionals?”. And again: “although it is foreseen by a national agreement, nothing can be seen on diagnostics in our studies: we continue to envisage a model linked to the Pnrr and nothing is done to invest in today. Instead, we are convinced that we must start with investment in human resources”.

“Let’s save the National Health Service: this is the appeal – launched in a video message to the squares by the president of the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists (Fnomceo), Philip Rings – On our part, there is full solidarity and support for all the demonstrations that are in favor of a system that wants to treat everyone in the same way through fair and supportive access to the national health system. “Today the system is in serious difficulty because the professionals are suffering – he added – for this I thank them for their commitment. I say thanks to the colleagues who are parading in Bari today both in the square and in the assembly, to those present in Milan and to all those who have signed the great petition which has reached over 120 thousand signatures in support of the National Health Service”.