Health, Nursing Up De Palma: «Alarm of cuts to Healthcare, the Court of Auditors exposes the gaps in the government's PNRR revision plan, even highlighting a defunding of 1.2 billion intended for the Regions».
«The Court of Auditors, in its detailed memorandum on the revision of the National Resilience Plan, has exposed the shortcomings of the project to remodulate the PNRR Health mission implemented by the Government (defined as the PNRR decree)effectively giving weight to the Regions' complaints.
The representatives of the executive, primarily Minister Fitto, they denied the accusations to the sender, but for us, as a union of healthcare professions, it is our duty to tell the community what could be a real new wake-up call on the scarcity of resources made available to our healthcare system.
The Court of Auditors' report, which there is no reason to doubt, could really pave the way for scenarios, we dare not imagine, even worse than the current one.” As Antonio De PalmaNational President of Nursing Up.
The revision of the PNRR does not go down well with local authorities. The Municipalities had said they were satisfied with the decree on refinancing, but now the Regions are going on the attack on healthcare cuts which would take away 1.2 billion euros from them.
At the hearing on the decree in the Chamber, the Regions presented themselves aggressively asking to remove article 1 which “cancels resources already assigned to the Regions from PNC funds (National Plan for complementary investments) for approximately 1.2 billion euros”, according to the coordinator of the health commission of the Conference of Regions, Raffaele Donini.
They would be “investments that are already construction sites” and assigned tenders “that require liquidity”. The replacement solution identified by the government is in fact “non-existent”. This is the so-called 'ex article 20', the fund dedicated to hospital construction created at the end of the 1980s, which in the Government's intentions should finance the 'safe hospital' project which emerged from the PNRR after the revision. But for the Regions these funds are not enough.
«For our part, we want to see things clearly, says De Palma. In fact, we risk finding ourselves faced with a new massive defunding of our healthcare system.
If in 2010 public health spending per capita was equal to the average of European countries, in 2022 we have reached a GAP of over 830 euros per head, or around 48 billion.
This aspect was cushioned above all by human capital. In fact, the persistence of the spending cap on healthcare personnel set in 2004 first reduced the quantity of doctors and especially nurses, then naturally progressively demotivated them. Furthermore, apparently, the slowness with which the funds for building renovation and technological modernization are spent is also a burden, and with the remodulation envisaged by the Government, the reorganization of territorial services envisaged by the PNRR has been significantly scaled down.
Our real fear it is therefore not only linked to the lack of funds allocated to what is the fundamental chapter of the building renovation of hospitalsbut above all we would not want the combination of so many negative elements to eventually fall again, on the already precarious economic stability of health professionals.
Let's be clear, our healthcare in this historical moment, more than ever, represents a sick person, limping, walking with one leg. Well this one leg is the healthcare professionals who are tired and harassed. The leg could give way, and there are still many who are starting to imagine their future away from the Italian healthcare system!
In short, nurses and other professionals in the sector are disappointed and angry.
And what will happen now that Schillaci promises on the one hand the elimination of waiting lists and on the other the cancellation of spending ceilings?
It is increasingly difficult for us to think that the funds are actually there, and above all that there will be the much-promised hiring plan that is needed to inevitably restart our healthcare system”, comments De Palma.
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