The 2024 budget law did not provide for the extension of the Fund to combat eating disorders. This is a cut of around 12.5 million euros per year which – according to the alarm raised by professionals – risks jeopardizing many health services for the treatment of pathologies such as bulimia and anorexia.
Forty associations of patients' families have already written to the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci and the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to ask for the extension of the allocations.
The Fund was established in 2021 and a total of 25 million euros had been allocated for the two-year period 2022-2023, a sum that must be spent precisely by 31 October 2024.
The failure to extend the financing, decided by the Government and approved by Parliament, represents “a hard blow for more than three million patients, for their families and for those who work in this area”, he said. observed on social media Laura Dalla Ragione, psychiatrist from ASL Umbria 1, among the experts who had been identified by the Ministry to manage the Fund.
According to the psychiatrist, the resources had “begun to make assistance between the Regions more homogeneous and accessible”. In particular, it is estimated that thanks to the Fund, over 750 professions in the sector have been hired.
Currently in Italy there are 126 specialized centers for the treatment of eating disorders, of which 112 are public. With the disappearance of the National Fund, however, there are fears that dozens of these will face closure.
A significant problem, in the face of ever-increasing diagnoses, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Today it is estimated that around 3 million people live with this type of disorder in our country. In 2023 alone, there were over 1.6 million new cases.
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