The bill on the new Lea "is a mockery, since the dissolution of the Chambers does not allow for discussion in the Commission or in the classroom", underlines the PDL senator Antonio Gentile commenting on the end-of-year announcement by the Minister of Health Renato Balduzzi on the document developed by the ministry to be submitted to the scrutiny of the Economy and which will have to pass the agreement with the Regions. Among the points envisaged, the recognition of 110 rare pathologies that have long been waiting to be included, and five new chronic pathologies: pulmonary emphysema and chronic bronchopneumonia, osteomyelitis (inflammatory bone pathologies), chronic kidney disease, autosomal polycystic kidney dominant and sarcoidosis in stage II, III and IV. Thalidomide syndrome also enters the Leas. Among the objectives of the new Leas is to put a stop to too many prescribed tests, which are often not even needed and which cost the NHS dearly, with checks on at least the 5% of the prescriptions and the obligation for the doctor to justify the prescription, otherwise the prescription will be unusable. Furthermore, the treatment of gambling addiction is an incentive to practice "painless childbirth", even if the epidural can be made available to future mothers only in adequately equipped structures that the Regions will have to identify, developing special programs to spread its use. Difficult therefore in the many small hospitals with birth centers that make fewer than 500 births a year.
The president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into regional health errors and deficits is also perplexed, Antonio Palagiano. “Italy – he says in a note – has been waiting for the redefinition of the essential levels of health care for years, but this completely virtual update proposed by Minister Balduzzi just before the elections appears very suspicious. In particular, we have strong perplexities regarding epidural anesthesia. To implement in our hospitals the much desired painless birth, required by the 90% of pregnant women but offered only by the 16% of the structures, a much more considerable number of anesthesiologists would be needed compared to the one offered today in our hospitals». However, the current conditions, he continues, "are very different from those suggested by Minister Balduzzi in including childbirth analgesia in the new Leas".
Marco Malagutti – 7 January 2013 – DoctorNews
Smi, patients also pay for useless prescriptions
If you want to curb the phenomenon of useless or improper prescriptions of specialist visits or investigations through sanctions, it is not only the doctors but also the patients who pay the latter. This is the provocation with which Joseph Del Barone, national president of the Italian Doctors Union (Smi), responds to the provisions of the Balduzzi decree on the new levels of assistance. In fact, generalists are required to specify the reason for the examination requested and it is foreseen that random checks are carried out on their recipes; so it will be possible to find any i
