The first results were presented in February, and they were not encouraging. No surprises – but some concerns yes – therefore, in finding theASST Ovest Milanese among the “black shirts” of monitoring waiting lists in the national health system in the created by Federconsumatori and the Isscon Foundation with the contribution of the Welfare and Rights Area of the CGIL, which «photographs the maximum waiting times recorded in the Regions and PAs of Trento and Bolzanoin the 41 local health authorities of metropolitan areas and peripheral areas of large cities, and in 13 hospital authorities”.
The monitoring involved «in each region two or more local health authorities and a hospital», verifying «i waiting times in April 2023, as a common sampling month»; to do so, “requests for civic access to the documents were made in the event of failure to publish the data on the institutional sites of the health companies or the Region” and “the waiting times were recorded on the basis of a specific form containing 14 outpatient services, 14 diagnostic services, 17 inpatient interventionsamong the services covered by the National Monitoring foreseen in the National Government Waiting List Plan 2019-2021″.
Among the entities monitored in Lombardy are the ASST of Brescia, that of Garda and the ASST West Milanese, where record times were recorded for a first cardiological visit to the Cuggiono Hospital, where you have to wait 426 days, and for an initial vascular visit to the Abbiategrasso Hospital, where one ends up waiting 400 days. It doesn’t get any better at the Legnano Hospital, where there is a wait of 677 days for a first eye examination, nor at the Magenta Hospital, where a first physiatric visit takes 310 days. Negative records also for diagnostic tests, with i 735 days of waiting for a cardiac Doppler ultrasound at Magenta Hospitalwhere you also have to wait 546 days for an MRI of the spine and 251 days for a gynecological ultrasound, and with the 682 days of waiting for a fundus photograph at Abbiategrasso Hospital.
«The data emerging from national monitoring are indicative a health system in serious trouble from North to South, with the Regions of Southern Italy and the Islands in which there is an aggravation of structural emergencies in the provision of healthcare services – we read in the report -. The Central Regions show clear signs of trouble, while other Regions, both in the North-East and the North-West, highlight data, in many ways, unpublished until the pre-pandemic periodeven more so compared to their excellences and for the per capita public health spending they receive from the National Health Fund”.
«The data collected by monitoring strengthens awareness of severity of a phenomenon already known and they photograph a public health system which, in the face of growing and widespread health needs and which puts the efficiency of regional health systems to the test (already stressed by the pandemic and the shortage of personnel), marks time, cedes shares to the private sector, generates sacrifices and accentuates inequalities. Even more serious is the reading of thewidespread lengthening of waiting listsif associated with the underfunding of the National Health Fund and the institutionalized drain of further resources towards the private healthcare sector which, in this way, will be able to benefit from further shares of public spending”.
