Elections. Medical orders and trade unions mobilize in defense of the NHS: “Ready for strong civil action”

Fnomceo together with the unions of employed and affiliated doctors: “The slope towards privatization, the structural shortage of staff, employees and agreements, the worsening of working conditions with the consequent escapes, the triumph of bureaucracy and” paper medicine “, Jeopardize the very survival of the health service”.

24 SEPT –

“Saving the Soldier Public and National Health Service”. This is the slogan with which the FNOMCeO and the trade unions of employed and affiliated doctors, veterinarians, health managers, doctors in training announce to the Conference of Regions and autonomous provinces and to the Government and the Minister who will come , the start of a mobilization in defense of public health, their role and the conditions of their work.

“The downsizing of public intervention – reads a note signed by ANAAO ASSOMED – CIMO-FESMED FEDERATION (ANPO-ASCOTI-CIMO-FESMED) – AAROI-EMAC – FASSID (AIPAC-AUPI-SIMET-SINAFO-SNR) – FP CGIL DOCTORS AND MANAGERS SSN – FVM Federation of Veterinarians and Doctors – UIL FPL COORDINATION NATIONAL CONTRACT AREAS MEDICAL, VETERINARY HEALTH – CISL MEDICI – FIMMG – SUMAI – FIMP – SMI – SUMAI – FNOMCEO -, the slope towards privatization, the structural shortage of staff, employees and agreements, the worsening of working conditions with the consequent escapes, the triumph of bureaucracy and “paper medicine”, put the very survival of the service at risk sanitary. Yet, even in this electoral campaign no party has made it a central theme of its political proposal, limiting itself to fragmentary interventions and imaginative promises ”.

“The fact – continues the note – is that politics knows little about healthcare and takes little care to know, preferring to ignore the critical reality of things. The storm of the Covid-19 pandemic was perfect and, if the staff avoided a health caporetto, the virus acted by highlighting, and accelerating, the structural contradictions of our health system, radically changing and, perhaps, definitively, the scenario in which We move. The emergency of hospitals and territorial primary care remained on the table, first aid to the extreme, bureaucratized affiliated medicine and in many points of the country absent due to incorrect planning, primary and secondary prevention never or little on the agenda of care processes, reducing access to first-level care and consequently creating waiting lists that the PNRR funds risk not being able to resolve in the absence of a necessary coordination that achieves the response of care in a unicum, overcomes the fragmentation between hospital medicine and territorial and do not relegate the continuity of assistance to a mirage “.

“Emergencies that struggle – continue the doctors -, however, to appear among the priority interventions promised by political parties in the current electoral campaign, while the crisis of the unitary nature of the health service is worsening, the disruption of which involves an overall loss of social cohesion entrusting the quality and safety of care to the postcode.

Economic and social reconstruction must not cause public health, solidarity and universalism, which produces and does not consume wealth, to slide down the agenda of priorities, between inflation, energy crisis and war in Europe, considering it an onerous item of expenditure. But speaking of health also means speaking of work in health care and therefore of human capital. The current crisis in the medical profession is undeniable, caught between demographic change and legitimate gender needs, restriction of economic resources, obsession with control by healthcare management, transformation of the “patient” into a “client”. A mortification of the professional role related to a burden of bureaucratic tasks that takes away space from the clinic, pretending to replace the stopwatch for the stethoscope, and to an identity crisis that is the background, with cause and effect, to the public health crisis that will not find solution if not together with it.

Health and human capital are two cornerstones to be defended and made more solid with adequate resources and coherent projects. For this reason, the relaunch of public health must be combined with the enhancement of our roles and our functions, in order to be able to count in decision-making processes and be respected in our competences. Not numbers called to produce other numbers, but professionals who guarantee the enforceability of a constitutional right “.

“At the center – continue the doctors – of our initiatives are, in fact, the right to health of citizens, the value of our work, which is a fundamental value of the NHS, and the request to the Conference of Regions that there is and to the next Governance of responses, starting from the budget law, regarding:

– persistent inaction of contracts and agreements (with the inconsistency of already having an Act of guidance for the 2019-2021 Convention for outpatient specialists and not yet for general medicine and pediatrics of free choice and as the Act of address of the CCNL 2019-2021 for addiction), with serious organizational, economic and social security damage;

– remuneration levels that are inconsistent with the severity and riskiness of the work;

– hiring necessary to cope with the ongoing exodus, and to improve working conditions in health, hospital and territorial structures;

– recovery of social and professional role;

– commitment to avoid the dismantling of the NHS, in progress for over 10 years, the consequent inequalities, the privatization of the largest civil and social infrastructure built by our country.

After having highlighted alarm and concern on several occasions, we believe that the time has come, in the absence of effective political responses, for the direct assumption of individual and collective responsibilities through civil and strong actions, by all the forces that care about heritage and the fate of the SSN.

The system of treatments cannot be saved without or against whom those treatments are called upon to guarantee. Indeed, the enhancement of the professionals of the National Health Service, of the area of addiction and of affiliated medicine, is an essential condition for safeguarding the health of citizens. The “capital of the poor”. What, they say, comes first. In short, it is time to “take care of health so that it can cure the health of Italians” (Cassese) “.

Other articles in Jobs and Professions