Dr. Luigi Mascia, director of Businco, replies to regional councilor Armando Bartolazzi who yesterday in the regional council defined the oncology hospital as "a hologram" , a structure that as a point of reference for cancer patients "in fact does not exist".
Mascia says he is "surprised" and "disconcerted" by the statements of the member of the Todde council, and responds with a letter to our newspaper.
"I have been working for just under 32 years (out of just under 64 that the registry office certifies me) at the SC Oncologia Medica of the Hospital, which I have been managing for some years: I therefore believe, having dedicated exactly half of my life to these issues, I can allow myself some considerations. The A. Businco Oncology Hospital, far from being, as claimed by the Hon. Bartolazzi in the statements reported by the Daily Newspaper that you direct, "a hologram", an "oncological structure that in fact does not exist", has represented for over 50 years a certain, concrete, actively and daily reference for the community of cancer patients and their families, coming from all over Sardinia".
"Improvided" words from Bartolazzi, who conveys "a devastating message for patients and their families : the Oncology Hospital is not able to provide innovative drugs, the most recent and effective therapies against tumors, so patients are forced to turn outside the Region to be treated; the percentage of such treatments is negligible compared to other national oncology facilities. This message is completely unfounded, and therefore must be opposed , albeit with due respect to the institutional role, with the utmost determination".
Again: «I can certify, beyond any doubt, that the Oncology Hospital is able to provide and does provide any drug or antitumor therapy of recognized efficacy in the various tumor pathologies assisted: even drugs not yet included in the normal procedure for dispensing can be requested, on a nominal basis, on the basis of the indications and under the responsibility of the prescribing Doctor, from the competent organs of the Company, and never, in my experience, have they been denied, even if they are expensive and sometimes not easy to find, where the documentation supporting the request was valid. Our daily clinical reality is full of therapies with these new antitumor agents prescribed on the basis of the indications and needs of the patients, and actually provided , on request of the individual Specialists, and purchased consequently by the Company, where not yet included in the list of drugs in use in daily clinical practice».
According to the professional, IRCCS should not be considered a conditio sine qua non for providing advanced and quality oncological care.
«To claim that “Sardinia lacks a reference oncology center” on the basis that “the island is the only region in Italy, together with Calabria, that does not have an oncology IRCCS” is based on an assumption, completely unproven, that it is not possible to provide quality Oncology, in step with the times, outside of such structures. Nor, moreover, is IRCCS necessarily synonymous with quality, as recently documented by careful analyses on the subject ».
«I am not attached to the concept of Reference Center: but I believe it is undeniable that the Oncology Hospital represents an irreplaceable reality, for quality and volumes of care, within our Region , recognized at a national level as an oncology center of great importance. Which does not mean, obviously, that we cannot work to improve it, with the contribution of everyone, users, operators, management bodies. It is true, dramatically, that a regional Oncology Network is completely absent, like the regional Tumor Registry , both of priority and unavoidable importance, for which specific bodies have long existed, which have produced a rich documentation of analysis and the consequent final constitutive projects, which unfortunately have remained, at present, a mere declaration of intent. It would be vitally important to focus concretely on these issues, and to actively and intensely support the territorial structures , whose dramatic shortcomings affect the critical state of healthcare in the entire Region, depriving patients of the possibility of treatment in their own territory of residence and forcing them (this time, yes) to make long, uncomfortable, expensive trips to reach the very few functioning regional Centers, which in turn are burdened by an overload of work that is at the limits of sustainability, if not beyond».
Another critical issue, continues Mascia, "is represented by the substantial absence of territorial structures dedicated to simultaneous, supportive and palliative care, which patients desperately need, but which in many cases they remain without : it is quite evident that these patients, deprived of the right to care at home, access hospital facilities, often through the Emergency Department, in conditions of clinical severity, worsening the overload and further compromising their care capacities, already severely tested by the well-known healthcare reality".
In short, Businco "has welcomed and welcomes, treats and assists thousands of patients, to whom it provides highly professional services in the diagnosis and treatment of tumors, in the disciplines of Medical Oncology, Hematology, Surgery, Oncological Dermatology, Oncological Radiotherapy, Oncological Cardiology, as well as in the Advanced Instrumental Diagnostics, Laboratory, Anatomopathological Units and in all associated Services, not possible in most of the health facilities of the Region, to which patients turn, at the cost of serious inconvenience, coming from all over the region, often at the request of specialists in the area of residence, unable to provide the necessary services".
Finally, an invitation to Councilor Bartolazzi: «I am certain that if he could find the opportunity to visit the Oncology Hospital, something that unfortunately has not happened so far, he would certainly have the opportunity to acquire elements of knowledge of the role that the Hospital, far from being the hologram that he paints, represents for the Sardinian oncology reality, and consequently certainly change his own thinking, and support the Hospital as much as it deserves, actively supporting it in the search for solutions to the critical issues, even serious ones, that it faces daily, through the work of all its members, and strives (concretely) to overcome».