From the Nobel Prize winner for physics Giorgio Parisi to the pharmacologist Silvio Garattini, passing through the president of the Superior Health Council Franco Locatelli and the immunologist Alberto Mantovani: these are just some of the important signatures who sign an appeal in defense of the National Health Service, for ask for an extraordinary financing plan and greater valorisation of staff to stem the crisis facing the system.
"From 1978, the date of its foundation, to 2019 the NHS in Italy contributed to producing the most marked increase in life expectancy (from 73.8 to 83.6 years) among high-income countries. But today - yes reads in the document - the data demonstrate that the system is in crisis: decline in some health indicators, growing difficulty in accessing diagnosis and treatment paths, increase in regional and social inequalities". Above all, the accusation is the strong underfunding of public health, to which "6.2% of GDP will be allocated in 2025, less than twenty years ago", specify the signatories, among whom there are also economic and political experts healthcare like Francesco Longo of Bocconi University and the former director general of the Ministry of Health Nerina Dirindin.
"The real emergency is to adapt the financing of the NHS to the standards of advanced European countries", equal to "8% of GDP". Specific resources "must be allocated to remove territorial imbalances" which "differentiated autonomy risks widening". We must then "intervene in depth on healthcare construction" and "address issues such as the valorization of operators, their protection and the guarantee of sustainable working conditions". The continuity of care between hospital, territory and home remains a problem that today "can no longer be postponed", as is the issue of prevention, the expense of which "has always been below what was planned".
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