Waiting lists: increasingly worse for those who can't afford private visits and surgeries.

An MRI scan takes at least a year. A mammogram takes less than 720 days. And only nine regions have a website for interactive healthcare.

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Waiting times for specialist appointments in Italy: a waste that harms citizens' health.

For a magnetic resonance On average, it takes a year. For a mammogram 720 days, for an ultrasound 375 days, for a CT scan and for a cardiac surgery 365 days, slightly more than what is required for a diabetes visit (362 days) or an orthopedic operation (360 days).

HEALTHCARE WAITING LISTS

The waiting lists in the Health Italy is divided in two. Between those who can afford to go to private facilities, and therefore don't have to wait in line, and those who don't have the means to do so. Between those who live in regions (usually in the North) where the national health service works better, and those who live in areas of the country where living conditions are poor. hospitals are shameful.

ALSO READ: Home healthcare: Let's invest Europe's money here. Less waste and better quality.

WAITING LISTS AND COVID-19

The long wave of the coronavirus emergency has dealt a mortal blow to the functioning of public health. Covid-19A situation that has caused millions of services to be cancelled, again to the detriment of the most vulnerable population groups. According to calculations by the Research Center for Healthcare Economics and Management at Carlo Cattaneo University, due to problems related to the Covid-19 emergency, 12,5 million diagnostic tests, 20,4 million blood tests, and 13,9 million specialist visits, all skipped. Breast cancer surgeries have plummeted by 20 to 40 percent, yet this is a cancer where time is crucial. For an eye exam, in 2019, a citizen had to wait an average of 70 days; by 2021, that had already risen to 144 days.

WAITING LISTS WHAT THE LAW PROVIDES

Yet we have a stringent law on waiting lists. National Health Service must guarantee a service within 72 hours, if urgent;  in 10 days if the patient is a "short" code; within 30 days if the exam can be postponed; within 120 days if it is scheduled.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WAITING LISTS?

The waiting list, a huge waste that affects citizens' health, arises from an imbalance between supply and demand for healthcare services. Therefore, it is the result of a bad organization and incorrect functioning of hospitals and local health authoritiesThe primary person responsible for waiting lists is the facility's medical director, who is responsible for maintaining and updating the booking records. However, this role is not merely a passive accounting role: the medical director is responsible for reporting malfunctions, implementing necessary corrective measures, conducting periodic evaluations for each service, and, above all, ensuring the fairness of services. No one, for any reason other than a certified emergency, may override the order in which they were placed on the booking list. On the Cittadinanza Attiva website, this is stated: link, you'll find all the information on the maximum waiting times allowed by law for waiting lists and what to do when they're exceeded.

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HOW TO GET ON THE WAITING LIST

Everything happens for via computerPatients can be placed on the waiting list online, and at that precise moment, they have the right to know: information about their admission, priority classes, and maximum waiting times. In reality, as we've said, the effects of Covid-19 have been devastating for waiting lists, and in many hospitals, during the most critical phase of the epidemic, all other healthcare services were suspended. As the virus situation gradually improves, a national plan for reducing waiting lists should be developed, without discriminating between regions. It's worth remembering that there's a law on waiting lists dating back to 2003, and it must be respected precisely to prevent them from building up. 

WHAT DOES PRIORITY ON WAITING LISTS MEAN?

This is a code, where the B is going to Breve, which indicates the utmost urgency for intervention. The service, due to the patient's specific conditions (pain, dysfunction, disability), must be performed within ten days of the prognosis. A quicker timeframe is the only priority. U, which stands for Urgent, to be performed within three days. Then there are the D, Deferred, within thirty days, and the P, programmed, within 180 days. Prescriptions with these priority levels are valid for six months.

WAITING LISTS FOR SPECIALIST VISITS

The avalanche of backlogs to be cleared from the already very long waits before the pandemic: hence the forecast that times will doubleTwo years for a herniated disc operation. Sixteen months for a psychiatric evaluation. Fourteen months for a mammogram. Nine months for an MRI scan, and six months for an oncology checkup. Faced with the data collected in the Health Report by the Patients' Tribunal and Active Citizenship, which at first glance seem unlikely due to their severity, only one thing comes to mind: In Italy the right to health, which on paper was guaranteed to all citizens, has been cancelledThe national healthcare system, despite its costs being in line with those of other European Union countries, is no longer a universal health care network. And access to services, with these waiting lists, is denied to a large portion of the population, while it is guaranteed only to those who, thanks to some saint in Heaven, are able to bypass the booking schedule. Then add the costs of the co-payment (which in some cases make public services less affordable than private ones), the cost of non-reimbursable medications (€650 per family), expenses for those requiring a caregiver (€9.000 per year) or disposable products such as diapers and catheters (737 euros), and you have a devastating picture of the Italian healthcare system. A system that now seems to function more according to those who work within it than to the patients who should be guaranteed comprehensive care.

WAITING LISTS IN HEALTHCARE

On the other hand, Italians, a naturally adaptable people, have already taken their countermeasures. Very costly. A Censis study calculated a 30 percent di citizens and they resort to private individuals for mammograms (plus another 13 percent who pay the bill in-house), and more or less these percentages are found across all medical specialties. And only a third of Italians (11 percent in the southern regions) consider the National Health Service in their region to be "adequate." While our political class continues to debate, often in abstract and ideological terms, how welfare reform should be reformed, citizens, at the cost of financial sacrifices (which, of course, also impact the contraction in consumption), are shelving their relationship with public healthcare.

TO KNOW MORE: Two years for a herniated disc, 112 days for a mammogram. Is healthcare really for everyone?

DELAYS IN HEALTHCARE

Such a progressive decline cannot be traced back to a problem of financial resources, another Big National Lie, given that public spending on social protection in Italy is equivalent to that of Germany and Sweden: if anything the problem is the use of money, quality of spending, waste and inefficienciesThings we see every day, and continually denounce. Too many useless, small, and poorly equipped hospitals, with enormous waste of funding; too many departments only truly active in the morning, with the heads of private practices; too much chaos in the Emergency room, without a filter at the entrance of general practitioners; too much money granted to contracted clinics and nursing homes, which have grown abnormally and are not equipped to the safety standards required by law. It is in this cesspool of waste that citizens must wait a year before being diagnosed with cancer or understanding their risk of a heart attack. And it is in this cesspool that the current Minister of Health should work, not limiting himself to accounting for funds and then redistributing them, but aiming, with concrete, daily actions, to restore Italians' right to healthcare. It would be a wonderful reform.

TO KNOW MORE: Italians pay 22 percent of their healthcare costs out of pocket. Less waste and more innovation are needed.

WAITING LIST CHAOS

The entire waiting list system is very fragile because it stands on feet of clay. According to a study by the Gimbe Foundation, only 9 out of 21 regions have created a website To be interactive with users and to provide the IT platform needed to register on waiting lists without ending up in chaos. And these regions, not coincidentally, are almost all in Northern Italy.

ALL THE WASTE IN HEALTHCARE:

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