Healthcare, Gratarola: “Money to private individuals? The only way to convince patients to be treated in Liguria”

Liguria. “Many patients decide to seek treatment outside the regional territory. Strengthening public health thinking that they will return is a pious illusion. The only way is to acquire, alongside the strengthening of the public sector, also the accredited private sector, the only one that has rules of engagement capable of dragging professionals outside the regional borders”. Thus the health councilor Angelo Gratarola responded in the regional council to Gianni Pastorino (Shared Line) who contested the assignment of 3.8 million to private individuals for cardiac surgery and outpatient cardiology activities.

“Alisa’s stated goal would be to fully absorb the high passive mobility of our region. But we would like to understand on the basis of which assumptions a considerable part of the 3.8 million is made available for cardiac surgery – he intervened Pastorino – for which there appear to be no waiting lists”.

“There is no waiting list – replied Gratarola – but there is one passive mobility which in 2022 amounted to 5.6 million euros. The amount we have allocated would allow a hypothetical recovery of 60-70% of passive mobility”. According to Gratarola, “strengthening the public structure alone would not have significantly reversed” the trend, because “the patient will go outside the region, as he is already doing”. Incentivizing private individuals would therefore be “the only way to reverse the trend”.

The implicit meaning of the reasoning, in short, is this: by putting more (public) money on the table, companies could convince the most popular doctors to return to Liguria. In fact, as is known, the private sector is much more attractive than public healthcare for professionals thanks to its better contractual elasticity. The same principle would apply to orthopaedics, in which the Liguria Region is ready to invest up to 15 million euros.

“The effectiveness remains to be demonstrated – he countered in court Pastorino -. Nobody says that, because we give a significant part of resources to the private sector, patients will remain in Liguria. Either there is a qualitative problem with the public, and then we need to say it, or the conditions are missing, since there is no problem with waiting lists: in fact there is no one waiting for cardiac surgery. We have the structures, a second level DEA such as San Martino: this is a one-time operation that will damage public health irremediably.”