'Never so many resources for health care': how Giorgetti defends numbers and choices in the budget law
From the 6 billion more for the National Health Fund to the admission that on the payback of medical devices the response "is not yet sufficient" to the Ccnl in the Pa: the holder of the Economy in the Senate Chamber, however, remains silent on the doctors who have been left high and dry on the extra-contractual resources
"On healthcare, there is an increase in resources of 6 billion never seen in recent times" and "we have also started to take on costs that are not really ours because I did not invent the healthcare payback. But we have somehow started to take them on'. So said Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, speaking in the Senate Chamber at the end of the debate on the budget law (AS 1689). An important underlining in a 15-minute speech in which the owner of the MEF indirectly responded to the opposition's strides on the management of healthcare.
First answers on payback
'Medical devices are a problem, I know that perfectly well,' added Giorgetti, 'but we have started, even if probably not yet sufficiently, to provide an answer,' he added, looking at the unsatisfied demands of small and medium-sized manufacturers on the resolution of the payback issue.
The focus on contracts
There is no mention of the massive protests of the medical unions, deeply disappointed - they complain - for the "night blitz that on Christmas Eve sank the amendment that would have made available the extra-contractual resources already allocated to the medical management by two budget laws and, above all, would have filled the repeated violation of the dignity of health care executives penalised by an unjustifiable economic gap. A healthcare executive excluded, as well as contracted doctors, from the adjustment of additional services with which in words but not in deeds one would like to solve the problem of waiting lists".
Giorgetti did not speak of waiting lists, but rather cited the work of his colleague Zangrillo (Pa) sitting next to him, who 'has signed civil service contracts that are old and have been at a standstill for years'. And 'not only that,' he continued, 'we have budgeted resources for the next ones by recovering everything. This is also a new fact because contractual holiday pay was the rule in manoeuvres'.
Numbers of speakers
Two out of three of the budget bill's rapporteurs dedicate part of their speech in the House to healthcare: while Dario Damiani (FI) recalls that this is the opposition's warhorse, "then there are the figures that disprove everything and in healthcare today we can say that we have come to invest about 152 billion in 2026, that we have increased 21 compared to 2022 and that these investments will continue to grow. Investments that in recent years,' he emphasised, 'have led to 7,300 new recruitments, including 1,000 doctors and then nurses and socio-assistance workers, and thus also to improvements in salaries for healthcare personnel, the reduction of waiting lists, and compliance with deadlines for the provision of healthcare services. While he speaks of "almost 8 billion more in three years on the health fund" Claudio Borghi (League) stressing that "it is the largest figure of all" and "since the numbers do not lie", he recalls that "it was the Renzi, Gentiloni and Monti governments that cut the funds for health care".
