In recent days, healthcare has returned to the center of the debate in Sardinia where in Jerzu, in the council chamber of the Municipality, numerous experts have offered a careful analysis on the subject, highlighting critical issues that still exist but also the strengths of the entire system.
Lastly, the Regional Council, according to what is written on the Facebook page of the first female President of the Sardinia Region, Alessandra Todde, has approved an allocation of over thirteen million euros intended to reduce waiting lists and satisfy the demand for outpatient and hospital services until the end of 2024. For their part, hospital companies will be called upon to update their waiting list recovery plans within fifteen days. The initiative would seem to be appreciated, and would seem to represent an interesting starting point. In particular, these would seem to be important measures, especially when considering that the situation regarding waiting lists for reference services within the territorial context appeared to be somewhat heterogeneous in terms of common perception, with consequent difficulty in appropriately evaluating and monitoring the functioning of the service and, therefore, the actual functionality and efficiency in the provision of services.
The useful objective to be achieved would seem to be that of reaching an appropriate level of standardization, throughout the regional territory, of the management and use methods of booking systems, as well as their prompt accessibility to users. In this sense, updating the recovery plans of waiting lists in a very short time, as requested by the Hospital Companies, would seem to appear in all its appropriateness in order to identify the real need for services and health as generally understood, so as to guarantee the interested users, as final users of the Service, the same operational criteria in terms of prescriptions and methods of access to services.
In essence, the initiatives undertaken and to be undertaken at the regional political level would seem to be aimed at pursuing an efficiency improvement of the Territorial Health Service through a synergic work of joint participation of the Health Authorities, professionals and citizens necessary to bring to definition every appropriate management strategy in the control and management of the waiting lists and in harmony, moreover, with the provisions of the so-called National Plan for the management of waiting lists 2019-2021, and by the Regional Plan for the management of waiting lists for the years 2019-2021 at the time adopted by the Region itself with the resolution of the Council number 62/24 dated 4 December 2020.
The need to be satisfied would seem to be that of offering a response to the different needs of users, also with a view to quantifying the burden of the services requested. The right to health, as constantly highlighted, is a primary right constitutionally guaranteed by Article 32 of our Constitution which identifies it as a "right of the individual and interest of the community" and guarantees, at the same time, "free care for the indigent". The concept of health, due to its scope, reflects a condition of well-being of the individual which, as a whole, would also seem to imply other socioeconomic rights attributable to it.
For this reason, the initiative suggested by the Councilor for Hygiene, Health and Social Assistance, Armando Bartolazzi, appears appropriate in its presentation, as the Councilor himself declared, as a "measure in an extraordinary regime, that is, referring to a specific period and aimed at the substantial recovery of waiting lists in our region".
Time will provide feedback on the effectiveness of the measures adopted so far, and will also be useful in improving the paths traced to ensure the best use of health services.
Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro
