The figure emerges from the annual report of the Cnel
Red alert for public health. The National Health Service 'drowns' in debt: around 40 billion euros to suppliers. A mountain of money resulting from the purchase of goods and services necessary to make the health system work: from drugs to medical devices, from laundry services to restaurant services.
This is what emerges from the annual report to Parliament and the Government on the levels and quality of services provided by central and local public administrations to businesses and citizens by Cnel (National Council for the Economy and Labour), which took the Court's findings as a reference of the regional finance accounts for 2011.
In the document of the Court of Auditors taken into consideration by the Cnel, payables to suppliers constitute the majority of healthcare debts: almost 69% in 2009 and over 67% in 2010, with increases in 2011 (with the exception of Liguria). "Overall - reports the Cnel report - the debt amounted to 35.5 billion in 2010 of which almost 50% (over 16 billion) belongs to the Regions under commission or subject to plans to reduce the deficit.
Specifically, Lazio has debts of 7.5 billion, Campania 6.5 and Sicily 2". In the light of this picture, "if we assume for 2011 a trend in the debts declared for 2010 by the five Regions which have not yet provided the data for the survey (Lazio, Campania, Sicily, Calabria and Abruzzo), the debt – reads the Report – stands at 37 billion. If instead, more likely, it is estimated that the figure for the five Regions may have grown at the rate recorded in the others, the figure reaches 40 billion".
Federico Finocchi – 17 December 2012 – PharmaKronos
