Ssn between costs and bureaucracy, reports for waiting increase

A National Health Service with significant cost problems, bureaucratic burden and difficult access to services in a still significant part of the country. It is the one outlined by the 22nd Pit Salute Report by Cittadinanzattiva-Patient Rights Court presented today in Rome. The report, which examines the contents of 21,416 reports received by the local PiT Health counters and the territorial sections of the Tribunal for patients' rights from January 1 to December 31, 2018, notes that "the number of reports for expectations increases, to which the citizens have unfortunately learned to respond by putting their hands in their pockets to pay for intramoenia or the private sector, and increase the number of reports regarding territorial assistance (16.8%) ". Waiting lists are a problem reported in over half of the cases (57.4%) for access to benefits (examinations, interventions), followed by tickets and exemptions (30.8%), Intramoenia (8.6% ). For waiting lists, citizens report more problems in obtaining specialist visits (34.1%), surgery (31.7%) and diagnostic examinations (26.5%). The average exams for the exams are longer in the case of Mammography (16 months, in 2017 they were 13), Magnetic Resonance (12 months), CT (11 months) and Ecodoppler (10 months). For general surgery the expectations are a problem in 16% of cases, while 13% report similar difficulties in Oncology. Also for the Ophthalmology there is an 11.3% of citizens who have faced hardships to get an intervention, with actual expectations, for example for a cataract operation, which reach 15 months. Other examples of expectations beyond the normal regulatory indications, as presented by the citizens, are those of 22 months for breast reconstruction and 6 months for a bladder tumor removal. On the subject of tickets, citizens report the non-application of exemptions in 4 out of 10 cases (40.8%), high costs for diagnostics and specialist (32.1%) and those to be paid by the citizen (19 , 9%).