An insulin syringe can cost three cents but there are also those, AS1 or hospitals, sparing no expense, who have come to shell out 65 cents a piece. The ceramic inserts for hip prostheses range from 284 euros to the astronomical figure of 2,575 euros per piece, with a difference of 800 percent. And what about the tibial inserts used to restore knee mobility? Here the difference is abysmal: there are those who bought them for 199 euros and those who were willing to pay them 12 times as much, 2,479 euros to be exact.
These are the first data on the purchase prices of drugs and medical devices from the survey being carried out by the Supervisory Authority for public contracts and which Il Sole 24 Ore on Monday is able to anticipate.
What emerges, in the first place, is that in the health supplies the jungle of prices in the area is very dense. The tables published here on the right [omitted] are just a "taste" of the detailed work that the Authority, led by Sergio Santoro, is carrying out. The goal is to arrive in time with the deadline set by law: from 1 July next, the Authority must provide offline reference prices for some drugs, medical equipment and even hospital services. This is foreseen by one of Tremonti's latest maneuvers (the Legislative Decree 98/2011, article 17) which had begun to trace a path for monitoring public health expenditure. The Authority, together with Agenas (the national health agency for regional services) has developed a series of statistical datasheets for sampling, taking as reference the tenders awarded in 2010-2011.
And today the first data on minimum, average and maximum prices arrived which demonstrate precisely how far there is still to go to arrive at standard or at least not so misaligned parameters on healthcare purchases. "In this way we want to provide - explains the president Sergio Santoro - a useful analysis tool for a possible review of spending processes". One more weapon, in practice, for the new Purchasing Commissioner, Enrico Bondi. No information, however, will be made public on the administrations analyzed ("The law does not provide for it" explained by the Authority): therefore it is impossible to understand, at least for taxpaying citizens, where waste lurks in the area.
The survey is quantitative: that is, it measures the unit price of a good, not the quality (even if a certain uniformity is guaranteed by the very detailed technical specifications). And it must be taken into account
