Hospitals and public healthcare: did you expect Italy to be among the world's top providers? Yet, despite scandals and waste, it is.

The Lancet ranks us 13th out of 195 healthcare systems across all continents. And Bloomberg says we're fourth in efficiency. Not everything is medical malpractice.

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efficiency of the healthcare system in Italy

EFFICIENCY OF THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN ITALY

If you have entered in Emergency room of a Italian hospital, and unless you were unlucky or improvident in your choice, grasp what I'm telling you: these are places, relative to the resources allocated and the staff, where we often measure a combination of heroic acts with highly professional interventions by doctors and nurses. Or the exact opposite, in much rarer cases. In any case, don't be fooled by the news, almost always true and well-founded, about episodes of medical malpractice and absurd deaths in hospitals, and by the lies, downright fake news, that describe our public health system as nothing more than hell. It's not true. Italian healthcare can also boast very important records in the world.

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EMERGENCY ROOM EFFICIENCY IN ITALY

We have to be proud, in general, of our National health system, of the achievements Italy has made over the course of an entire century (the twentieth century), arriving, since 1978, at a model that allows all citizens to receive healthcare and assistance. Without any distinction, for example, based on income tax returns, wealth, or assets, and without excluding anyone, at least in principle.

You will never believe it, but this is a statistic of Bloomberg, entitled TheEfficiency of health systems around the world: Italy, no less, is at the fourth place in the world, after small countries, but very solid from the point of view of public hand, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, and before, much before, nations more similar to us, such as France and Germany. Again: according to a study published in The Lancet in 2017, Italy placed 13esima of standings of quality and accessibility di 195 global health systems. Not bad.

So, have we understood nothing so far? Everything is fine and everything works in our universal healthcare system born on December 23, 1978 with a specific law, the so-called health reform? The answer, of course, is a double No.Unfortunately we have understood well, as the facts speak for themselves: in the face of public hospitals that do us credit throughout the world, where thousands of doctors, nurses, administrative staff are sacrificed, we have some (but it must be said loud and clear: they are a minority) where they only think about wasting public money, the essential performances are not guaranteed and there is a smell of corruptionSome waiting lists for the most essential tests are a disgrace to a civilized country like ours. And it's horrifying to see people dying, for no apparent reason, in one of the instances of medical malpractice I mentioned. 

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EFFICIENCY OF THE NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM

But since the roots of the Italian national health system are precious and represent a source of pride for the whole country, then we must think about how reduce and eliminate pockets of waste, inefficiencies, bribesWe must succeed in making the Babel of medical malpractice increasingly smaller, to limit it to a few exceptional cases. And instead we must relaunch, by investing the necessary resources as a country, in terms of investment in technologyin highly specialised (qualified, and not hired in a clientelistic manner), in interventions of modernization of the same hospital buildingsThis is what's needed. And to do it, we must have the courage to close a hospital if it's not needed and doesn't provide the necessary services, if it's the poisoned fruit of political patronage and old logic whereby a local notable felt entitled to have "his" hospital built with state money. For decades, political patronage has run rampant in the public healthcare system. Now it would be enough. reduce waste and fraud, invasions of the pitch and clans, where they exist, and the Italian health system, in addition to making us proud of what we have and which we must not lose, would also make us safer and happier as citizens and as potential users.

WHEN HEALTHCARE HORRIFIES US:

 

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