Nuoro. Pharmaceutical spending too high: "Doctors, cut costs immediately"

The commissioner's appeal: "Prescribe medicines only when needed and in the right quantity" The Nuorese local health authority will have to save more than 3 million euros in 2016. "Still far from the target"

07 settembre 2016 – La Nuova Sardegna Nuoro

NEW. Pharmaceutical spending skyrocketing in the Nuoro area. A voice that weighs like a boulder on the regional health budget. For this reason, the Department of Health has foreseen, for 2016, an overall saving, at regional level, of 32 million euros. The Nuoro health company will also have to do its part. And the sacrifice will not be painless. The Nuoro local health authority will have to reduce spending on medicines by 3 million euros: 2 and a half million will have to be saved on medicines prescribed by general practitioners and paediatricians, while 500,000 euros will be saved on hospital medicines.

In these first six months of 2016, conventional pharmaceutical expenditure fell by 8.6 percent compared to 2015: a saving of almost one and a half million euros. But the goal of 3 million savings set by the regional health department is difficult to reach by the end of the year. For this reason, yesterday the extraordinary commissioner of the ASL Mario Palermo sent a heartfelt letter to general practitioners, paediatricians and the head of the territorial pharmaceutical service so that they undertake to prescribe drugs only when they are necessary, in the right quantity and, above all, those that they have the lowest cost, i.e. generic drugs and not those produced by the best-known pharmaceutical companies.

«The Regional Department of Health has requested everyone's collaboration to reduce expenditure on pharmaceuticals, the real scourge of the regional health budget - writes Commissioner Palermo in the note - Encouraging the use of generics, prescribing the strictly necessary amount of medicine, with precision to the scientific evidence for indications, doses and duration of therapies, prescribing the molecule of a certain class that costs less, are habits that must guide all doctors who care about adequate health care, even economically". And, of course, persuading general practitioners won't be enough. Often, in fact, it is the patients themselves who insistently ask doctors for the prescription of the most expensive drugs, also because they are suggested by specialists. In short, achieve the savings goal set at 3 million euros for 2016 will not be simple. Also because in these first seven months of 2016 the drop in pharmaceutical spending is going slowly. In the Nuoro district it decreased by approximately 870 thousand euros (-8.85 compared to 2015), in the Siniscola district by 261 thousand euros (-7.77%), while in Macomer there was a saving of 207 thousand euros (-7.47%) and in Sorgono of 157 thousand euros (-8.96%). "In all, from January to July 2016, there was a decrease in pharmaceutical spending of 8.68% compared to 2015, with a saving of approximately 1.5 million euros" continues the extraordinary commissioner. Who, in the note, does not hide his concern. If pharmaceutical spending continues to drop at this rate in the next few months, in fact, it will be very difficult, within a few months, to achieve the savings targets set by the Region for 2016.

Medicines for the cardiovascular system and hypertension are confirmed among the medicines most consumed by the people of Nuoro. Followed by drugs for the gastrointestinal tract and those necessary for the treatment of osteoporosis. "Every saving, even small, is an act of ethical respect and awareness," writes Palermo to doctors. For doctors who do not comply, Palermo warns, "the report to the Court of Auditors will be triggered".

(gz)