"Do community homes and hospitals represent an addition to the healthcare network or a replacement for the current hospital network? What staff will these services be staffed with?" These are two crucial questions posed by the Fials union through its provincial secretary in Cagliari, Paolo Cugliara.
The workers' representative formulated the questions in light of the triumphalist tone of the announcements according to which the Region had achieved the NRRP objectives with the construction of the facilities.
"We maintain that new facilities cannot be opened by taking professionals away from acute care hospitals, which already suffer from a severe shortage of doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers," explains Cugliara. "The real risk is that we will further weaken the departments that provide emergencies, urgencies, intensive care, surgery, and all those lifesaving services that are the heart of the public healthcare system. Furthermore, we will jeopardize citizens' right to health."
Community Homes and Community Hospitals are primarily intended to care for chronically ill patients and manage vulnerable populations at local level. "These are important services, but they cannot be developed at the expense of the hospitals that save lives every day," continues the FIALS secretary. "The real challenge is not building new walls, but hiring new staff. Without an extraordinary plan to recruit and develop healthcare professionals, the risk is that community facilities will remain open and acute care hospitals will be increasingly empty. And when the capacity to maintain these lifesaving centers is lost, it is the citizens who pay the price."
For this reason, FIALS is calling for clarity: "Is the strengthening of local healthcare aimed at strengthening the public service or is it aimed at encouraging the use of private healthcare, creating inequalities in access to care, a healthcare system that not everyone will be able to access."
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)
