2023-10-19 15:22:58
Assistance and care for citizens 24 hours a day as real ’emergency rooms’ always open. In Bergamo, Brescia but also Milan and Rome, projects and initiatives are multiplying in the big cities. But unlike the National Health Service they don’t treat you if you don’t pay. In Lombardy, above all, this type of facility is often called ’emergency room clinics’ and has already been operating for some time. But even in Rome there are private healthcare facilities where you can go night and day in case of need. However, we are talking about white and green codes, which in the language of emergency medicine are not emergencies.
De Iaco: “It’s different if we talk about large groups”
“Let’s not call them emergency rooms – Fabio De Iaco, president of the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine – tells time.news Salute – but clinics where banal services are performed. For example, I cut my finger with the can of tuna and I go there, maybe I do it sooner and find less chaos than in an emergency room.”
The issue of private provision in the field of emergency medicine, “is very complex, let me explain: if we talk about large private healthcare groups, Humanitas, San Raffaele and Gemelli, there it makes sense to have a private-subsidized emergency room because there “there is a hospital center behind it that gives every type of response to those who can access the emergency room. And there is nothing to say. Another thing are experiences like the one in Bergamo” at the San Marco Polyclinic in Zingonia “which in reality we call them emergency rooms, we commit a distortion. The private sector has identified a flaw in the public sector, where we are not efficient and in the right time, and where it can find space. But we are sure that those who access these services will not have to return to the public emergency room because maybe a headache was a stroke or a stomach ache a heart attack and you need a complex unit to manage them?”, asks De Iaco.
High costs that increase with exams
According to Simeu, the costs of access to these ’emergency room clinics’ “do not represent the final total, because you pay for any radiological tests or blood tests – warns De Iaco – So the bill in the end will be high, and a lot. An appendicitis complex, I’ll give you an example, how much does it cost in the private sector? 18-20 thousand euros? Here are these figures, not everyone can afford them and even insurance doesn’t necessarily cover them. So what does the patient do? He goes to the public hospital. So – he glosses – he pays 140 euros to bypass the emergency room queue but then end up having to go there as a last resort. There were those who had proposed giving those discharged from hospital the cost of treatment that they would have had to pay if they had been in the private sector, here’s someone should remember that.”
“Private individuals test the appeal towards citizens”
According to the national secretary of Anaao Assomed, the union of NHS managers, Pierino Di Silverio, “private individuals are testing the appeal of these ‘private emergency rooms’ to citizens, if there really is a request for treatment in emergency. In Brescia” where a private emergency room-clinic had been launched “after our complaints, a public-private agreement was stipulated to create a free network of emergency rooms. A very interesting project”.
Then there is the news to relaunch the need to have efficient emergency rooms. A 59-year-old woman died outside the emergency room of the ‘Mauro Scarlato’ hospital in Scafati (Salerno), which has been closed for work for a few months. The incident was reported by the mayor of Scafati Pasquale Aliberti, who explained how the woman’s husband “attempted a cardiac massage” while waiting for an ambulance “alerted by the Municipal Police” but “which arrived after more than half an hour” . For Simeu, “there is an issue that concerns how small, poorly equipped structures must be closed, but in reality it is not the emergency room that is closed but the entire emergency-urgency network which means 118, 112 and other subjects – concludes De Iaco – So we must not ask ourselves about the single point but about the network that must take into consideration the needs and care needs of the citizen, from the home to intensive care”.
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