Even in 2023, healthcare remains the great sick person of Italy. The country, which has paid a very high price for the pandemic, has not yet restarted the health machine and there is not even a government program aimed at resolving all the current critical issues. Thursday was the leader of the Third Pole Carlo Calenda to present a plan – also sent to the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – on what he called the biggest emergency in the country. There are currently 98 million healthcare services delayed, a situation that makes it necessary “to invest every available euro of the public budget in this, because otherwise people will continue to go into debt to get treatment. And this is unworthy of a civilized country”, said the former minister, who underlined how the State has a treasury of around 10 billion which needs to be channeled entirely into health care.
Then there is the sensational flaw relating to the lack of doctors and nurses. Thousands have fled Italy in recent years. According to an investigation by health newspaper based on OECD data, from 2019 to 2021 40 Italian graduates fled abroad: 15.109 nurses and 21.397 doctors. It seems a phenomenon linked to the pandemic, but it is not, because between 2000 and 2022 almost 180 thousand professionals chose to work abroad, writes Giulio Nisi in his investigation.
We talked about these topics with the Professor Nino Cartabellotta, President of the GIMBE Foundation, one of the most authoritative research and health experts in our country.
Professor Cartabellotta, what is the main reason why Italian doctors go to work abroad?
“The critical issues regarding personnel are innumerable and result from both cuts and lack of programming, but also from the enormous fragmentation of trade union, scientific, professional and healthcare workers. Healthcare personnel are demotivated and no longer find it attractive to work in the National Health Service, as evidenced by early retirement and voluntary redundancies, escapes to the private sector or even abroad which frustrate the investments made in training".
Even after Covid, Italian health spending remains inadequate. How do we keep our sanitary ware?
"We need to relaunch human capital policies: invest in healthcare personnel, adequately plan the needs of doctors, specialists and other healthcare professionals, reform the processes of training and assessment of skills, in order to enhance and motivate the backbone of the National Health Service ”.
The OECD also claims that Italy has an expenditure on treatments and medicines equal to only 9% of GDP. After Covid, the organization of the health system, which seems unbalanced, should be rethought. Doctors from Cuba are arriving in Calabria. What does he answer?
“Yes, the working conditions of health personnel throughout Italy are critical and to meet the demand for personnel, in some cases, unusual methods are adopted such as service cooperatives and the recruitment of retired or foreign doctors. The issue of healthcare personnel requires timely solutions but investments for new specialists and general practitioners will bear fruit in 5 and 3 years respectively".
One last consideration. The GIMBE Foundation has thoroughly monitored Covid. How did we come out in your opinion?
“The National Health Service has been hit by the pandemic at a time of financial fragility, which counts 37 billion euros of definancing in the years 2010-2019. Recent investments have been completely absorbed by the emergency which has created new health needs and further weakened the health personnel".
