Because Schillaci spanks family doctors a bit
“I don't fight on the contract of general practitioners but I expect them to work a certain number of hours and ensure their presence in community homes”. Here is what the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci said about the contribution that family doctors will have to make to healthcare reform
For a health reform that really changes the situation facing Italian healthcare, local medicine is necessary. And this, according to the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci, needs the contribution of family doctors, who however seem to be not only overloaded with patients but also on the verge of extinction .
Here's what the scenario is and what the minister has in mind.
FAMILY DOCTORS GET IN TOUCH
“We must carefully review the contribution of general practitioners,” Schillaci announced at a hearing at the Chamber's Social Affairs Commission on the situation of emergency medicine and emergency rooms in Italy.
In fact, the minister explained that "no real health reform can have hope if we don't review what general practitioners do, who are fundamental".
But how to do it? “We need to review what the 'rules of engagement' are: I don't make it a problem of the type of contract, I'm not very passionate about the fact that they become employees of the healthcare system or remain freelancers, but I'm very interested in GPs giving a effective hourly contribution within the health service and that this occurs in particular within the structures that will be responsible for ensuring territorial medicine", clarified Schillaci referring to community homes.
“I don't fight about the type of contract – specifies the minister – but I demand that general practitioners work a certain number of hours and ensure that work within community homes otherwise any type of reform, even the best one, will be impossible to succeed in take her home."
AAA DOCTORS WANTED
The question raised by Schillaci, however, clashes with reality. In fact, several experts fear that community homes, and Pnrr structures in general, will be "empty boxes" because there are not enough staff. And precisely on the subject of family doctors, a report from the Gimbe Foundation states that in Italy there are more than 3,100 missing and almost half of the total already exceeds the maximum limit of 1,500 assisted, with clear regional differences, which risk worsening if we consider that by 2026, over 11,400 general practitioners (GPs) will retire.
And for the president of Gimbe, Nino Cartabellotta, not even the increase in the number of ministerial scholarships allocated to the specific training course in general medicine will be sufficient to fill the generational turnover by 2026.
THE SCHILLACI SOLUTION
However, even the Minister of Health – also citing the phenomenon of coin collectors – recalled the problem of the shortage of doctors, not only among family doctors but in general.
“There is and will be especially from this year for the next 3-4 years linked to this pension 'hump' because several colleagues will retire. However – he specified – if we then see that the cooperatives find the coin-operated doctors, then we have to ask ourselves a question. And last year with the Bills decree we put a stop to token operators to ensure that they can return to the NHS with different and fairer conditions".
For Schillaci the solution is to give "greater professional dignity to trainees". “We read that 20-30 thousand doctors are missing, the estimates are more or less these, but we have around 45 thousand doctors in the system. The trainees are doctors, therefore in harmony with the specialization schools we cannot do without their qualified contribution", concluded the minister.
EXCEEDING THE HIRING EXPENSE CAP
To address the shortage of medical personnel, the minister then spoke about exceeding the hiring spending limit.
“If we don't put new forces into the National Health Service and don't hire doctors and staff, it's difficult to think that the NHS can continue to offer what it offers, as it does despite a thousand problems. This is connected to a point that is very close to my heart: the employment restriction on spending ceilings. I have been working on it since the first day I became minister – he assured -. I declared it and I am strongly convinced that within the year – after 17 years because the spending ceiling dates back to 2007 – we will be able to exceed it and this is the most important result".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/perche-schillaci-sculaccia-un-po-i-medici-di-famiglia/ on Wed, 27 Mar 2024 15:15:56 +0000.