In the new government, the management of the Health Service will be entrusted to the individual Regions, which however do not all have the same economic resources. Above all, the difference in interventions and therapies for children are of concern
This is the first government in which there is no Ministry of Health, absorbed within the sphere of Welfare, which also includes the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies. The budget of around 100 billion euros will be almost entirely devolved to the Regions, who have already been responsible for the management of the Health Service for some years. This is a useful provision, because there is no doubt that at the regional level it is possible to better identify, plan and finance the local needs of the many bodies that deal with health. However, as with all organizational decisions, even the best ones, it is important to consider the possible negative aspects in order to be able to prevent them. Regions are not all the same: there are large and small, rich and poor. The levels of health that can be measured with various parameters are very different in the various Italian regions: one difference for all, perhaps the most worrying, is infant mortality. It is profoundly unfair that those who have the misfortune of being diagnosed with cancer find many well-equipped institutions in Lombardy, while in Sicily they do not have similar specialized institutions. How many trips are there by people from the South looking for a solution to their illnesses in the North or abroad? Certainly many, and they represent an injustice within an injustice: in fact, they are the highest socio-economic classes who can have access to services even far from their residence; the ipesso poor are not aware of the differences between the various institutions and in any case have fewer resources to undertake travel and stays in other Regions. The situation in favor of the North over the South must be resolved by planning the resources necessary to make Italy more homogeneous. In this sense it is very important to strengthen and improve the State-Regions structure to ensure that the improvement of the more advanced Regions does not increase the gap with respect to the less efficient ones. This can only be implemented through substitution and collaboration interventions, which the State can catalyze: small Regions can join forces or more organized Regions adopt the less evolved ones. In past years, the State has somehow foreseen this situation by instituting the LEA, i.e. the essential levels of assistance, which are all those diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitation interventions. The Ministry of Health: the Berlusconi government has incorporated it into the Departments of Labor and Policies Social, headed by Maurizio Sacconi. qualifications that must be guaranteed throughout Italy. The fact remains that waiting lists are not the same in all regions. As for drugs, the Italian Medicines Agency must select those that show characteristics of effectiveness and make them available free of charge throughout the country. Even in this case, however, the situation is not homogeneous because in some Regions the ticket is paid while in others it is not. In some cases, such as in Tuscany, alternative medicine departments have even opened, a decision worth reflecting on in relation to the case of Florence where a diabetic girl died because insulin had been replaced by homeopathic products. There is therefore a great risk that, as far as health is concerned, our country could become c
