(ASCA) - Rome, Sept. 29 - The controversy continues after the announcement made by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on the project for the "privatization of many public hospitals" which the trade unions, consulted by the ASCA, rejected without reservations.
The only discordant voice was Uil Spl which, in the words of the general secretary Carlo Fiordaliso, defined "the privatization of hospital management" as "something to think about in a positive way".
”A clear, transparent and strong 'no' expressed it Massimo Cozza, national secretary of FP Cgil Medici.
”The goal of profit is difficult to combine with health protection and the United States is effective proof of this. Furthermore - explains Cozza - this system also produces higher costs for the State. In the USA there are over 40 million unassisted citizens and almost double the GDP is spent to maintain health care. The right to health is everyone's right”.
In Italy "the regions that have a strong private sector are those that also have a greater deficit and a lower quality of assistance: Sicily, Calabria, Lazio, Abruzzo, Puglia, where there are repayment plans and a lower quality is guaranteed". The national secretary Fp Cgil Medici then focused on the statements made by the Undersecretary of Health, Ferruccio Fazio, who proposed a joint venture between the public and private sectors: "A joint venture can also go well in some areas, but it absolutely must not enter into health protection. We don't want Italian public hospitals to turn into so many Santa Ritas. Furthermore, the idea of starting to create these private units in Sicily, Calabria, Puglia is surprising, precisely the regions where there is already a greater private sector and there are headquarters of organized crime".
The secretary of the Cisl pensioners, Antonio Uda, says he is "always open to any discussion" but underlines that "a unilateral decision can only be very worrying because privatizing without having the guarantees of the provision of health services does not leave us with a calm heart. A negotiation should be opened on these things also because in the discussion of fiscal federalism it should be the regions that decide how to behave and not the national government unless what is assumed in the Green Book on Welfare is taken for granted where it speaks of the reduction of health care spending by passing through the principle of horizontal subsidiarity whereby every person in Italy must contribute to health care costs". Without forgetting, concludes Uda, ”that we are the last country in the EU and one of the last in the world as regards the financial resources for the self-sufficiency fund which does not concern only the elderly, but also young people and children. With such a health system, there is a risk of weakening universal rights".
Standing out from the chorus of "no" is Uil Spl which, in the words of Carlo Fiordaliso, highlights how "the proposal is not exactly to privatize the hospital, but rather to privatize its management. In hospitals where it has been shown that politics has created deficits and poor assistance, thinking of turning to the outside world with rules other than those of political division could be a possible path to verify" but, Fiordaliso underlines, "if the idea is to entrust it to the current managers of private nursing homes, it terrifies me because as entrepreneurs these have not given great proof of themselves.
However – he concludes – in principle the privatization of management is something to think about in a positive way”.
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