Health, the Regional Administrative Tribunal agrees with De Luca: Campania should get out of the deficit plan

Campania's healthcare system can exit the previous debt recovery plan and return regularly to the Region's management. The Regional Administrative Tribunal (TAR) gave reason to the battle that governor Vincenzo De Luca has been waging for more than two years and warned the Ministry of Health: it must 'immediately' take the Region out of the plan. De Luca waited for the ruling to definitively close the ordeal of the Campania health system, which was placed under commissioner status in 2009 and exited in December 2019, while remaining in the recovery plan. And today he speaks of an 'extraordinary victory', a 'battle won in the interest of our fellow citizens and families'. The ministry's response was immediate: 'The Ministry of Health will immediately appeal to the Council of State.

The verdict of the Regional Administrative Court comes after a long and harsh clash between the region and the government, which, despite the steps forward taken by the region, continued to hold up the recovery plan. "We are thinking of suing the government officials present at the table at the ministry for extortion," the governor himself had reiterated a few days ago, "for the economic damage those officials have caused the region. It is also a shameful scandal that Campania is still in the recovery plan and other regions are not.

The Ministry's 'no', he added today, 'severely penalised healthcare and contracted structures and was used in an instrumental manner'. In its ruling, the Regional Administrative Court emphasises that 'the Campania Region has achieved and maintained a balanced budget, while the Ministry of Health's contested refusal emphasises the need to also ensure the full guarantee of the provision of the Essential Levels of Care (LEP), noting that some objectives have been achieved, for the palliative care, birth and breast cancer networks, but not others for which it is noted 'the failure to reach the minimum thresholds for mammography screening and colorectal screening as well as a serious delay in the coverage of the elderly residential network, which keeps Campania last in Italy on this indicator'".

However, each of the government's observations, the ruling goes on to say, does not change the conclusion: the Region has 'reached the minimum threshold for each macro-level' and, therefore, 'the appeal must therefore be upheld and the Ministry of Health's refusal must be annulled'.

Opposite is the position of the ministry, which, in a note, points out that it should be noted that the new LEA Guarantee System 'is only one part of the more overall system of assessing the performance of the regions in providing essential levels of assistance to citizens. And it is on this overall level that Campania is still in non-compliance on important aspects that do not make it possible to certify the exit from the recovery plan". In particular, 'the indicators reveal an inadequate sociomedical network, i.e. inadequate assistance to the elderly and frail, and structural criticalities in cancer screening programmes'. "The budget balance, achieved to the detriment of citizens' services," Health emphasises, "cannot be considered sufficient for the exit from the Deficit Recovery Plan. Precisely because of these shortcomings, 18 months ago the Ministry of Health, before authorising the exit from the Deficit Recovery Plan, had asked the Campania Region to achieve a number of objectives, including recovering the socio-healthcare network; improving screening; stabilising and adjusting the performance of the LEAs. The Campania Region has not achieved these objectives'.