“Let’s not hide behind a finger. There are critical issues in our healthcare and the biggest one is finding staff especially for the emergency room in Lucca, but also in other sectors. On the other front, that of waiting lists to access visits and specialist tests, there is the big problem of the increase in requests for healthcare services in our local health authority. Compared to 2019, which is the pre-pandemic reference, the request for services increased by 50 percent”. This is what the general director of the company says ASL Tuscany North West, Maria Letizia Casaniafter the presentation of a new echoendoscope to the hospital San Luca of Lucca donated by Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca foundation.
Solving the waiting list problem is not easy. According to the general director, the solution is not not to take the exams, as she immediately clarifies, but to work on their appropriateness. “We are working to resolve the waiting list problem. There is a need for a path with family doctors to get precise and punctual prescriptions or where they are really needed. I understand that even for family doctors, achieving this is not easy, especially because there is a pressing request from users.”
Some sectors then suffer more than others in terms of healthcare services, for example ophthalmology, dermatology, digestive endoscopy and cardiology. “Here in particular there has been a surge in requests: we have tried to provide an answer through better organisation, we have certainly not managed to increase performance by 50 per cent, this has therefore created a gap on which we must work to prevent people from being left out and turning to the private sector.”
The critical issues in the emergency room: there is a lack of doctors
On the front of the emergency room the situation instead is this: that of San Luca is the weakest in the north-west Tuscany ASL. “At the moment – explains Casani – we have 8 trained doctors and many other vacant positions. We guarantee the service through the rotation of 118 doctors also from neighboring territories or from other provinces, sometimes from other local health authorities. Let’s hope new doctors arrive, those who have already arrived are actually from 118 and therefore many are still missing. However, the service has always been guaranteed. At the moment we have the problem that doctors often don’t want to come to Lucca, or rather since there are few doctors available, the local health authority is forced to accept their choice of location and often ask for other areas. Obviously we hire the doctors who arrive, even though we have always asked for the willingness to rotate and therefore cover even the most delicate areas to keep the situation in balance. However, they could theoretically arrive in Lucca soon new doctors given the scrolling of the current ranking: we are talking about 20 new positions, 5 of which have currently been occupied by 118 doctors”.
