March 19, 10:56
(ANSA) - ROME, MARCH 19 - Tickets on drugs increased by 40% in 2011. More than one citizen out of two who now pays for visits and tests out of his own pocket both to avoid the long queues ubiquitous in public health and because now, between tickets and supertickets, the private sector often costs even less.
And explosion of 'do-it-yourself' welfare with caregivers who now far exceed the employees of local health authorities and hospitals, amounting to around 774,000 against 646,000. This is the dramatic photograph taken by the 2012 Oasi Report of the Bocconi University, presented this morning by Fiaso (the federation of local health authorities and hospitals), according to which, in fact, healthcare austerity is translating into a cut in services and with increasingly strong dissatisfaction on the part of citizens.
According to the data in the report, in fact, in the Centre-South the majority of citizens now consider the services offered by our NHS inadequate (53.5% in the Center and 62.2% in the South against an Italian average of 43.9%). And the trend is completely negative, as shown by the 31.7% of patients who consider the health services in their region to have worsened. Another discriminating factor in the level of quality perceived by the clients is then the more massive policy of cuts that the 8 Regions inevitably had to implement in the plan to recover from the deficits: 57.8% of those living in Campania, Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, Piedmont, Calabria, Puglia and Sicily declared themselves dissatisfied against a more modest 23.3% of 'dissatisfied' of the other Regions. Proof of the far from painless impact of austerity policies in health. (ANSA).
