The Lazio Region is going in the wrong direction, with measures that will be ineffective in reducing health care costs and harmful to the work of doctors. The 'wand' comes from the Union of Italian doctors (Smi), which in a note intervenes in support of Lazio family doctors, in a state of agitation against the resolutions approved by the Region on prescribing appropriateness and on expired patent drugs."We need to invest more in healthcare – he explains Maria Paola Volponi, Smi national manager for general practice – in order to stay in line with Europe and spend better. Instead, among the regional administrators the conviction has now established itself that we just need to cut. In Italy, it should be remembered, the ratio between health expenditure and GDP is 8%, while in the other European countries it stands on average at 10%. Our pharmaceutical spending is almost under control and has very little impact, considering that ours is a country with an increasingly elderly population and therefore with many chronic problems. To scrape the bottom of the barrel, the appropriateness of treatment and the health of citizens cannot be jeopardised. This is pure short-sightedness. And the consequences are initiatives such as those of Lazio, where the 'accountants' of the Region in fact invade territories that are not within their competence, that is, the prescriptive choices of doctors on drugs. Above all under the threat of harsh controls and heavy sanctions. Instead of unloading the weight of these choices on doctors - he continues - it would have been more correct to address the root of the problem. As the regional leaders of the union have widely explained, if the political class really wanted to attack pharmaceutical spending, surveillance regarding the correct application of the Aifa notes both at a territorial and hospital level would be sufficient". Doctornews 30-05-08
