Public health in crisis: 4.5 million people forego treatment, spending on prevention plummets (-18.6%)

The crisis in Italian public healthcare is in the boom in expenditure for treatment paid for out of pocket by families, which will rise by 10.3% in 2023. It is in the 4.5 million people who, according to ISTAT's renounce visits and examinationsi, with 2.5 million forced by economic reasons. Spending on disease prevention services plummeted by 18.6 per cent, leaving almost EUR 2 billion on the road between 2022 and 2023.

It is in the gap of 889 euro of public health expenditure per capita compared to the average of the OECD member countries of the EU, which in total becomes a chasm of 52.4 billion. These are the numbers of the health emergency that the country is experiencing, in a context of serious shortages and staff de-motivation - with doctors and nurses fleeing from the NHS to the private sector or abroad - and of a gap between North and South that is still widening in 2022, the last year of reporting on the Essential Levels of Care. Those LEAs that are only adequate in thirteen regions while they should be guaranteed uniformly to all citizens.

The merciless portrait of a 'chronically ill' SSN is outlined by the Gimbe Foundation in its 7th Report on the National Health Service. "Data, narratives and population surveys - states Gimbe president Nino Cartabellotta - show that today the country's real emergency is the SSN, whose stability is close to the point of no return, that the founding principles of universalism, equity and equality have now been betrayed, and that the constitutional right to health protection is slowly crumbling, especially for the weakest socio-economic groups, the elderly and the frail, and those who live in the South and in inland and disadvantaged areas".

A wake-up call listened to carefully by the President of the Republic. In his message sent for the presentation in the Senate, Sergio Mattarella emphasises how the new Gimbe Report, dedicated to the critical aspects of the healthcare system, acquires 'a particular interest, as it acts as a solicitation for the application of the principles of universality and equality enshrined in the Constitution'.

And above all, he recalls that the SSN 'constitutes a precious resource and is an essential pillar for the protection of the right to health, in its dual meaning of fundamental right of the individual and interest of the community. Its efficiency,' added the Head of State, 'is the result, naturally, of the resources dedicated and the organisational models applied, the latter being the responsibility entrusted to the Regions.