Fsn at 101.5 billion – Supplementary funds, we change – Italy without Health
Lots of money, lots of bets, lots of mini-rules. These are the building blocks of the reforms that Minister Livia Turco disseminated above all in the last months of this agitated 2008 and which give the Health chapter of the 2008 Budget an aspect that is pleasantly in contrast with other bloody choices of the manoeuvre. After years of cuts in pursuit of waste, the numbers are growing on the "Planet of Health", investments as well, new and old reforms are preparing for the big debut. The first fact that counts: the NSF is still growing, the bar exceeds 100 billion, stopping at 101.457, 4.417 more than in 2007; 10,434 more than in 2008. Funds for the construction, restructuring and technological modernization of health facilities are growing, and attention is focused on the areas most lacking in assistance: from coma recovery units to neonatal intensive care, to palliative care . Still under the heading of loans, the following emerge from the folds of the maneuver: the loan of honor (9.1 billion euros) for the extinction of contracts with banks from the Regions with the repayment plans activated; loans (180 million) to settle pending compensation claims for damages suffered from transfusions, infected blood products and thalidoid; the 834 million that serve to abolish the fixed fee of 10 euros per prescription for visits and analyzes also for 2008; funds to support the spread of the papilloma virus vaccine among twelve-year-olds; the extra 50 million for strengthening prevention activities in the workplace; the money to compensate the victims of asbestos and those to replenish the Fund for non-self-sufficiency which in 2008 will be able to count on a budget of 300 million. Here and there still large and small funding for other emerging emergencies: from the extraordinary contribution to support the Cancer League (1 million a year until 2010) to the tribute to Telefono Azzurro (1.5 million), to the resources reserved for supporting young people researchers. Rules of "normalization", in short. Which are paired with the other substantial package of rules that forget money and prefer "discipline". In the miscellany it is worth mentioning the starter to the reform of penitentiary medicine, conceived by the legislator in 1999 and never implemented; the lever of the tax credit to encourage the birth of associated professional studies, thus strengthening the territorial medicine network; the regulatory slide for the reorganization of the national Ecm system, transposing the State-Regions agreement of August and incardinating the National Commission within the sphere of the renamed National Agency for regional health services. As well as the "thorny" rule which sets strict limits on the use of "off label" drugs, designed to avoid that, on the basis of limited or partial documentation of the drug's activity in a specific pathology, one thinks of experimenting it also for another , ending up using patients as unwitting guinea pigs. Finally, not to mention the little rule that would like to solve the problem of what remain true "gray areas" of the system: dental assistance and non-self-sufficiency. A few words in line to erase the old distinctions between DOC and non-DOC funds with a sponge and get down to business, selecting the services that really serve to integrate. The public health service. And again: the (almost rediscovered) serenity for the precarious employees of the CRI; the removal of obstacles - at least bureaucratic - for access to specialization schools; coverage of emergencies on the contract front; the drives to manage like a good family man on all fronts: from postage to canvas
