Dear Director, with this writing of mine I would like to be able to explain to everyone what the so-called “Differentiated Autonomy” will mean for Public Health; apologizing to readers if I am about to use a simplicity of text and expressions that may even seem banal and low profile for such an important topic; but that is precisely why I do it, so that everyone can understand the importance and seriousness of what is being discussed in Parliament, in this historical moment.
And I would like to state that the merit, even perhaps unexpected, of our fellow citizen the Hon. Leonardo Donno, is to have brought, with his gesture, on the lips and minds of everyone (truly everyone) an issue that concerns the life of every Italian citizen; something epochal that political correctness, political jargon and the “official” information of the national media could never have made fully known.
However, I attach the link to an article from “Sole24Ore Sanità” on the topic, for those who wish to delve deeper into the discussion at a higher level, declaring myself ready for any technical and political discussion.
“The child was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and they advised me to go to Bambin Gesù in Rome… luckily, thanks to the professor, she’s fine now… My wife in Lecce had been given six months to live due to a large brain tumor, we were resigned, then a cousin of mine who lives in Milan booked her a visit to the IEO (European Oncology Institute), we went and they operated on her after a week; three years have passed and she still lives…
We couldn’t understand, here, what my father had with his pancreas, then we went to Verona to the polyclinic and discovered a world… now my father goes for checks there once every six months, in Verona, but it’s completely healed…”
For the profession I carry out, this is a daily reality for me; a sad reality, because it is not clear why these differences between North and South still exist, but it is also true that it demonstrates how Italy is a great nation, unique and united, and the National Health System is available to the whole Italian people, without distinction: from Aosta to Lecce, from Trieste to Syracuse.
Our National Health System it is the greatest achievement of our republican history, because it is universal, safe, supportive, egalitarian. And, for those who don’t know (listen carefully), the NHS was born from the intuition, intellectual commitment and action of an enlightened politician, the Hon. Beniamino De Maria; you read it right: the NHS, which we have today, was born from the mind of a Galatian (but that’s another story).
With the law on the so-called “Differentiated Autonomy” signed by one of the most aggressive anti-Southerners and Bossian secessionists, Robero Calderoli (I challenge any honest person to argue the opposite), the NHS will be inexorably split in two: that of the rich regions of the north and that of the poor regions of the south.
This will happen because, once the law is approved, every single region will be able to “tell the State” exactly this: “the tax money that my residents pay must remain here at my exclusive disposal and must no longer be redistributed to help other regions in difficulty; in this way I will be able to organize my own public healthcare, with my own money, without asking anyone for anything; and I will decide who will be able to benefit from it and under what conditions and costs.”
The same will happen for School, Environment, Transport, Energy and much more.
Some rich northern regions are obviously already ready to make a speech of this kind. In short, “Gold gold everyone if you take care of their homes…” it’s the meaning. And it is dramatic, precisely because of what was said at the beginning about those “journeys of hope”, those which in technical terms are called “passive mobility” and which imply an expense that the southern regions, where the patient is resident , can reimburse the northern regions, where the patient goes for treatment, only by virtue of the joint redistribution of income that takes place upstream.
And perhaps it will be for Italians, one day not far away, as for US Americans, who must obtain basic health insurance to be treated in the State in which they reside and a more expensive supplementary one if they want to have the possibility of being treated in California if they are from Arizona or Texas or for example in Florida if they live in Alabama or Missouri. Basically the more you pay, with payroll deduction, the more choice the insurance company gives you.
Then there is the doctor, the cardiac surgeon, the oncologist, the hematologist, the best arrhythmologist who will go to work in the richest regions because his salary will no longer be the same throughout Italy.
Do you understand what this will mean? The centre-right majority claims that “differentiated autonomy” will ultimately be a good thing, because it will stimulate the regions of southern Italy to evolve and make better use of their funds, rolling up their sleeves (classic speech of the Northern League of the 80s and 90); but obviously we all know that, instead, with this lack of solidarity redistribution of tax revenue, we will fall further and further behind. And, if it were ever true that public health in the South will improve over time, who knows when this will happen and who knows after how much suffering and family tragedies.
This isn’t right. It’s not fair to us southerners; Let’s all try to understand it, regardless of political affiliation and ideology. Because, as I always say, when your son, or your father, is in an ambulance rushing to the hospital, about Meloni and Schlein “you couldn’t care less!”
Antonio Antonaci
(President of the Health Council Commission of the Municipality of Galatina).
The Sole24ore article
