“The pandemic has hit our National Health Service like a tsunami, creating enormous difficulties for all patients, not only for onco-haematological patients: delays in diagnoses, distancing of treatment programs, spaced therapy cycles to prevent the patient went to the hospital (the risk of infection was very high), wards converted into Covid centers. But this hospital-centric model has failed, and the time has come to focus on local medicine. The PNRR will have to focus on this fundamental aspect “, National recovery and resilience plan. This was stated by Sergio Amadori, national president of Ail-Italian Association against leukemia-lymphomas and myeloma (82 provincial sections, 15,000 volunteers), on the occasion of the national conference ‘Healing is taking care. Ail’s mission for healthcare on a human scale ‘, scheduled in Rome until 2 October at the Coni Hall of Honor, and which sees the Third Sector Associations as protagonists together to rethink the healthcare of tomorrow: close to needs of the sick and integrated in the territory.
“The hope of Ail – underlined Amadori – is that with the PNRR, a territorial system of medicine that is truly efficient, ready to respond immediately to the needs of citizens, will be re-established. The medicine of the territory, unfortunately totally forgotten in recent years , requires the recruitment of personnel, new territorial structures, from the Casa della Salute to the local outpatient clinic with general practitioners, a first aid for patients to avoid them having to go to the hospital. Our NHS, celebrated all over the world as one of the best, with the pandemic has proved very fragile. The health emergency has heavily overwhelmed our public health already put to the test in the last 10 years due to cuts in beds and staff. Result? With Covid we were faced with logistical and personnel difficulties “.
But if on the one hand the patients for fear of contracting the virus have kept away from hospitals, delaying and postponing visits and checks, “on the other – President Ail highlighted – they knew that delays in the diagnosis and execution of the therapies would have the result of the same treatments is compromised. Delays that for patients suffering from leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma have been reduced to a minimum (no more than 5% have suffered diagnostic or treatment delays), thanks to the haematologist specialists who work in the centers hematology and our 15 thousand volunteers present in the 82 territorial sections. Figures that represent an extraordinary heritage for us: always alongside patients to accompany them to the hospital, to provide them with information, to reassure them that going to the hospital was not a risk because they were organized with Covid-free paths. Theirs was a 360-degree assistance: from shopping to home therapies, they have neglected nothing “.
Finally on Ail’s mission: “It is the same one that Professor Mandelli first pointed out to us – assured Amadori, recalling Franco Mandelli, for a long time guide and president of the association – to stay close to patients and family members to help them throughout the process of disease, through a whole series of welfare measures known to all. That is, helping the patient in the moment of diagnosis, strengthening home care, helping patients by providing them with totally free accommodation (Ail also takes care of the expenses for travel of patients and family members), and to stimulate and support scientific research. Extraordinary progress has been made in oncohematological diseases: 30 years ago blood cancers had a cure rate of less than 20%, today 70% of our patients heal thanks to scientific research “.