On the evening of July 24th the Parliament approved the conversion into law of the decree Health, issued by the Government shortly before the European elections. The new text, with only slight changes compared to the previous one, provides for some interventions to reduce waiting lists.
However, a large part of the interventions will not have the support of new funds. In fact, the law does not provide for additional allocations or financing for Healthcare. Hospitals and ASL will be required to comply with the regulations with the resources they already have available. In the meantime, patients are reporting some irregularities implemented to artificially reduce waiting lists.
Health decree: what the government will do about waiting lists
With the last vote in parliament the bill has become law. Health Decreewanted by the government mainly to try to reduce waiting lists in hospitals. The new law does not differ much from the text approved by the Council of Ministers shortly before the European elections, but it condenses the rules foreseen to allow hospitals to reduce waiting times for patients.
There are several new rules, which concern both greater availability on the part of healthcare facilities and better use of the digital resources available.
- National waiting list platform establishedwhich will be used mainly by healthcare personnel and hospitals to take charge of patients waiting
- Establishment of unique Cups for each region or, in some cases, even at inter-regional level, to ensure greater efficiency
- Clinics and laboratories for analysis will also be open on Saturday and Sundayalthough there will be no allocations for additional staff
- Skip the Line rule introducedwhich will allow local health authorities to resort to private professionals to treat patients in the event of unforeseen delays.
No new resources: Hospitals’ tricks to reduce waiting times
The text has however also been criticised by several experts, mainly due to the lack of new resources dedicated to healthcare: “A wasted opportunity to promote greater integration between the National Health Service and Supplementary Healthcare, which should be made broader, for a greater number of beneficiary citizens, and more efficient” commented Ivano Russo, president of theNational Observatory of Welfare and Health.
A slight change in this sense has been made, however. The spending cap for hiring healthcare personnel has been removed, and will be increased to 15% of the Health Fund regional for 2024 and then arrive at the total abolition already in 2025. These are not new funds but a different distribution of those already present.
However, several patients are reporting some stratagems used by hospitals and local health authorities to artificially reduce waiting lists. One of these consists in refusing a request for a visit or test at the time of booking, especially for those with short legal deadlines, such as 30 days. The booking center then calls the patient back at the end of the deadline, accepting his booking and dispensing it within the time limits established by law starting from that moment. In this way the ASL is in compliance but the patient has waited more than double the established time limits.
