“On the one hand, strict and very scrupulous rules are imposed, with rigid and insurmountable spending limits, on the other, it is allowed to operate without any control to protect citizens.“. It’s a river in full flood Mariastella Giorlandino, president of Uap (National Union of Outpatient Clinics, Polyclinics, Institutions and Private Hospitals), which is leading the protest of private companies accredited and affiliated with the National Health Service. A world of entrepreneurs, doctors, professionals and health workers on a war footing against the measures adopted by the Government, which allow pharmacies to carry out a series of diagnostic and clinical services and tests previously reserved for outpatient clinics regularly authorized by the Regions and the Local Health Authorities. “And‘ paradoxical – Giorlandino adds – hearing about strengthening territorial medicine and seeing that the State gives up precision medicine and prefers approximate medicine, without safeguards to guarantee the health of citizens”.
The alarm raised by Uap is loud and clear: “The exercise of a professional activity that must be enabled, qualified and suitable to report clinical tests is entrusted to commercial companies and non-competent figures”, the Uap president points out. “And if we talk about structures – say the representatives of the clinics – we wonder whether the institutions are aware of the difference between municipal authorisations, issued without the existence of the requirements, and regional authorisations, which on the other hand are issued only in the face of over 420 structural requirementstechnicians and professionals that all public, private and hospital health facilities must possess”. Even the Lea “are used as a tool to divert attention from the need for a rational update of the price list. Double standards that highlight a policy that is inconsistent with the values it proclaims”.
“In short – the representatives of the clinics continue – on the one hand we continue to demand requirements, activity constraints, minimum performance thresholds and on the other hand we leave the field open to commercial initiatives supported by forms of uncontrolled advertising promotion by business groups that have a purely economic approach and end up distorting and exploiting the medical function, thanks to the facilitations and benefits ensured by the Government”.
“It is a plan – claims the Uap – masked by suggestive expressions such as service pharmacies, fight against waiting lists, which in reality hide the objective of finalizing the transfer of public resources and funds to multinationals that have banks as majority shareholders”.
“We ask – concludes Giorlandino – urgent measures to protect citizens, who unknowingly participate in the transfer of functions and skills in public health. Too many politicians are busy sponsoring approximate medicine. We believe that within the Ministry of Health and the Government there are politicians in clear conflict of interest, in close contact with lobbies and stakeholders. At this point the accredited facilities, together with doctors and health workers, can only turn to the highest authorities of the State to clarify matters in compliance with professionalism and citizens who have the right to safe assistance for the protection of their health”.
#Outpatient #clinics #polyclinics #Uap #Mistreated #compared #pharmacies #protections #citizens
