The MRI scans will go to the attic, for the next few months, at the Binaghi multiple sclerosis center. Stop appointments from next July 1st, regardless of what the booking date was. There are those who have set the day and time in January and now find themselves with a sting of flies in their hands. The phone calls to those on the list went out from the center of Via Is Guadazzonis. The message was the same for everyone: booked from July 1st onwards? Everything postponed. And the only alternative, for an important examination and check, is to turn to doctors who operate in private and who, rightly, must be paid for the work they do. But the “fault”, once again, lies with the public who apparently are unable to guarantee all services, whether more or less urgent. And the Sardinian healthcare omelette in chaos, irremediably, widens. And just a breath away from summer, that is, the period in which doctors begin, just as rightly, their holiday waltzes. Finding a place, for those who can open their wallets and proceed with the economic bleeding, risks being even more of a challenge.
Among those who have already received the call is Claudia Piano, a 25-year-old from Capoterra, who has been suffering from multiple sclerosis for two years: “I carry out my checks, which include MRI and neurological examination, at the Binaghi hospital where the center is currently based. These visits, in particular the MRI, must be booked well in advance and in any case it is not always possible to find the appointment within the hoped-for times. In my case I should have had the MRI now, in June, but although I contacted the hospital in January, the appointment was set for September. But today I have to correct myself, it was scheduled for September. I say it was because this morning I received a call from the center, in which they informed me that all the MRI appointments starting from July 1st had been canceled without the possibility of rescheduling them, since a new machine was arriving and they didn’t know when it would be operational, but in any case not before next year”. A joke, a good and cold shower: “They informed me that I would have to go to another affiliated facility to book and carry out the MRI. The call ended within a few minutes, leaving all the people who received it like me with so much anger, helplessness but above all a great sense of loneliness. It goes without saying that at the affiliated centers the first availability for the MRI appears to be in December 2025, in a year and a half. Privately there would be room in October this year, but at a cost of 927 euros. This is the situation I and so many other people with multiple sclerosis find ourselves in right now. As far as I’m concerned, my illness currently allows me the privilege of leading a normal life thanks also to therapy and periodic checks which, although it seems obvious to say it, are essential to keeping it at bay. But my thoughts go out to the people with this condition who struggle harder than me every day and I imagine I have only shed a tenth of their angry tears.” And the final observation is logical: “Sardinia is by far the Italian region most affected by multiple sclerosis but to date it is still an odyssey for people affected by this pathology to obtain what we rightfully deserve. Healthcare should support us in the fight against the disease.”
