PALERMO (ITALPRESS) – In a context still marked by persistent structural criticism, by increasing pressure on the response capacity of the health system and by significant steps of reorganization on the national and regional level, the private right component of the regional health system is confirmed as an essential precondition for stability, efficiency and welfare continuity. This is the sense of the intervention carried out by the President of Aiop Sicilia, Barbara Cittadini, on the occasion of the Regional Assembly of the Association, during which a broad and thorough reflection was developed on the state of Sicilian health, its main fragility and the conditions necessary to ensure balance, sustainability and capacity for development. “The private law component of the regional health system cannot be considered marginal, accessory or purely supplementary. It constitutes a stable, responsible and indispensable presence in the overall architecture of assistance and contributes to a decisive measure to the concrete exigibility of the right to health,” Cittadini explained.
In this perspective, the reflection developed by Aiop Sicilia assumes a clearly favourable character and is supported by a strict sense of institutional responsibility. The component of the private law of the regional health system, in fact, “is not limited to signaling the existing criticalities or to represent industry needs, but it recalls the value of an contribution that, even in the most complex years, has been translated into punctual results, measurable and consistent with the objectives indicated by regional planning, in a concrete way to the stability of the system, the continuity of assistance and the ability to respond to health needs”. “We need courageous choices, proper programming, a coherent resource framework and full recognition of the role that the private legal component of the regional health system fulfils in the interests of citizens.”
Aiop Sicilia renews its readiness to put itself as a concretely operational interlocutor of the regional institutions, in the belief that only from an effective comparison between the component of public law and the component of private law of the regional health system can result in a realistic reading of the criticalities still present and, together, the identification of the most appropriate solutions to address them. It is in this perspective of loyal, responsible and forward-looking collaboration that can be pursued a more balanced, more efficient and more modern system of regional health, capable of combining sustainability, appropriateness and effective protection of the right to health.
In his speech, the President recalled the general framework within which health policies are placed today, pointing out that economic and geopolitical instability, increased costs, rigidity of certain programmatory constraints and the lack of organizational responses contribute to making the management of services increasingly complex and increasingly difficult for structures to operate within a perspective of adequate planning.
“In this scenario,” said Barbara Cittadini, “the private component of the regional health system cannot be considered marginal, ancillary or merely a supplement. It constitutes, in all cases, a stable presence, responsible and indispensable in the overall architecture of assistance and contributes to a decisive extent to the concrete exigibility of the right to health”.
Ample emphasis has been given to the main nodes that continue to burden on the Sicilian health system, beginning with the waiting lists and passive mobility, phenomena that represent one of the most evident manifestations of the difficulty of the system to guarantee timeliness, proximity and appropriateness of care.“When the time of access to benefits becomes incompatible with a serious protection of health,” the President noted, “there is no longer a simple organizational inefficiency, but a substantial compression of a fundamental right of the person”.
On the economic-financial side, Barbara Cittadini recalled the importance of the path that led to the overcoming of a long-term penalizing asset founded on the roofs of expenditure, recalling how the system has endured for years a contraction anchored to parameters now completely disallined with respect to the evolution of costs, welfare requirements and the actual requirements of the territories.
‘The overcoming of that approach is a result of extraordinary importance,’ he said, “but this advance is likely to remain unfinished if, at the regional level, a coherent and full implementation of the measures introduced at national level is not achieved.”
The President therefore strongly recalled the theme of resources, stressing the need for a proper, stable and consistent financing framework with the objectives assigned to the structures.
“It is no longer sustainable,” he said, “continue to increase the level of performance required, the quality of organizational standards and the burden of regulators on structures, while at the same time compressing the resources necessary to make them concretely esigible. A system that demands more must also place the subjects who are part of it in order to support that greater demand for responsibility.”
Particular attention has been paid to the theme of competition and the new structure deriving from national discipline intended to produce its effects by 31 December 2026. On this side, Aiop Sicilia reiterated the need for a serious, realistic and politically conscious approach, able to measure itself with the specificity of the health sector and with the need to safeguard the continuity of the welfare offer.
“The regulatory change in place cannot be neither underestimated nor passively,” said Barbara Cittadini. “It must be governed by institutional intelligence, technical rigour and full awareness of the consequences that it can produce on system assets.”
A further step was the theme of rates and performance remuneration, which highlighted the need for an update consistent with actual costs, with the quality of performance provided and the overall sustainability of organizational models. In this context, the President recalled, on the one hand, the criticisms still open on the nomenclator of the outpatient specialist and, on the other, the positive signal represented by the increase of the DRG of hospital rehabilitation, which constitutes an important recognition, even though not exhaustive, of the needs of the sector.
In the course of the report, the emphasis was placed on the need for a reform of the National Health Service capable of confronting the transformation of the demographic, epidemiological, financial and professional framework, without indulging in partial approaches or in visions not adhering to reality.
“A reformer intervention of this magnitude”, said the President of Aiop Sicilia, “requires an authentic, structured and not merely formal confrontation with all the subjects that make up the system. No reorganization process can be credible, effective and durable if built by letting the contribution of those who work daily in the services and, through direct experience, know the strengths and criticalities.”
Citizens then recalled the theme, no longer deferable, of the updating of the regional hospital network, underlining how the persistent absence of an organic revision of the programming ended in generating disalignments, inefficiencies and imbalancesfinally, the aim is to draw attention to citizens and places of care.
“The programming”, he observed, “is not a formal fulfillment nor a purely technical exercise. It is the place where a system defines its physiognomy, establishes priority, distributes responsibility and makes the right to health concretely payable. For this reason it must be clear, coherent, updated and sustained by a medium-long-term vision.”
In conclusion, the President of Aiop Sicilia reiterated the value of the associative function and the role that the Association continues to play in representing, with a sense of institutional responsibility, the instances of the structures and, together, the general interest in a health system more balanced, more efficient and fair.
“Our Association”, concluded Barbara Cittadini, “is not only a function of representation. It contributes, with seriousness and continuity, to the construction of the political, orderly and organizational conditions necessary to strengthen the regional health system. It is in this perspective that we continue to address to the institutions a firm and loyal call: courageous choices, adequate programming, a coherent resource framework and full recognition of the role that the private component of the regional health system fulfils in the interests of citizens”.
-photo press office Aiop Sicily-
(ITALPRESS).
