Per capita health expenditure is growing in Abruzzo with the Region placing itself in seventh place for the results of the budget and the first provisional data on the Lea (Essential Assistance Levels) positive for all indicators.
In essence, the Court of Auditors certified the good results obtained in the report on the Coordination of Public Finance which photographs the situation as at 31 December 2022. The regional health councilor Nicoletta Verì communicates it with satisfaction.
Going into detail, from 2019 to 2022, the per capita health expenditure of each citizen rose to 2 thousand 185 euros compared to 2 thousand 11 euros in 2019. A figure higher than the other Regions in the recovery plan and in line with the national average respectively of 2 thousand 155 euros and 2 thousand 241 euros.
In the first ranking of Abruzzo there are Lombardia, Veneto, Umbria, Marche, Campania and Calabria. The budget, as already certified by the ministerial monitoring table, closed in substantial parity with a loss of only 100 thousand euros. This recovering despite the higher expenses incurred for the Covid emergency, only partially covered by state transfers, a situation which in 2019 marked a deficit of over 12 million euros. If it is true that the share of the national health fund due to the Region increased from 2 billion 604 million in 2019 to 2 billion 788 million in 2022, it is also true that this happened in the face of costs that increased from 2 billion 532 million in 2019 to 2 billion 702 million last year.
The balance of passive mobility also improves: in 2020 it was equal to 102 million euros, down to 94 in 2021 and to 86 in 2022 and the gap in pharmaceutical expenditure is also decreasing. On this aspect, the Court of Auditors compares the data referring to 2021 and 2022. Last year, the total expenditure overrun for territorial pharmaceuticals amounted to 6 million 34 thousand euros, 600 thousand euros less than the previous year . On the other hand, the percentage of direct pharmaceutical expenditure (that of health facilities) affected by the introduction of very expensive new oncological drugs is substantially unchanged, as is the data on medical devices”.
The report of the accounting judiciary also publishes the provisional data of the Lea monitoring (the essential levels of assistance) for the year 2021, which promote Abruzzo on all 3 grids: prevention (77.74), territorial assistance (68.46), hospital assistance (69.25). Prevention, which in 2020 had achieved a result slightly below the minimum threshold set for the objective, has recovered over 23 points on the evaluation in just one year.
Aspects to improve
The fronts on which corrections must be made and on which the department, department and Local Health Authority are already at work, assures Verì, to implement specific actions are the timeliness of interventions for fractures of the femur, the reduction of caesarean sections and the recovery of hospitalizations scheduled, which in 2022 reached 70 percent of waiting lists on January 1 of the same year.
Councilor Verì and President Marsilio: “The effectiveness of the measures implemented has been demonstrated”
“The report of the court of accounts – comments the regional councilor – has certified the effectiveness of the measures that this regional government has activated for the health of Abruzzo. The positive results are an important spur to continue on the path taken and to intensify even more efforts to correct those aspects that still need to be improved”.
The report for the President of the Region Marco Marsilio “demonstrates the excellent work done by the health department. I congratulate the councilor Verí, with whom we have worked side by side to achieve these results that give the lie to all the clichés and nursery rhymes that the opposition has continued to recite until today”.
“The Abruzzo Region – he adds – proves to be among the most virtuous in Italy in terms of respecting budget balances and it has done so by not reducing spending, it would in fact have been easy to break even by making cuts, but, as the data show, the it has done by increasing per capita expenditure to bring it to the level of the national average expenditure. All this despite the increase in costs. The result is that the same money is spent on the health of citizens in Abruzzo as in the rest of Italy”.
“It must be highlighted that the use of passive mobility decreases significantly, waiting lists are recovered, the Lea indicators improve, the essential levels of assistance, in relation to all three macro-areas, including that of prevention which last time had been just below the minimum threshold and has now made a significant positive leap. The report of the court of accounts – concludes the president – certifies our good administration also in the health sector”.
