BOLZANO. Waits of up to a year for non-urgent visits with discouraged patients clogging up the Emergency Room.
The health councilor Hubert Messner says enough and the ASL, with a resolution, establishes a task force to cut times: «Despite having implemented all the necessary actions, in some specialist areas there remains a critical situation in guaranteeing the provision of services within the maximum times established by law».
The national decree
The Company must intervene quickly also to implement the government decree of late July that requires the elimination of the lists at a national level. And we have checked some times. For a visit dermatological in Bolzano the wait is 351 days, 204 ophthalmology, 127 in rheumatology, 240 the physiatrist e 188 the neurological.
In Merano they are needed 183 days for a visit orthopedicThe times of a colonoscopy non-urgent exceed one year: 398 days in Bolzano, 390 in Merano and 315 in Bressanone. The waiting time for a non-urgent breast ultrasound is 131 days in Bolzano, 343 in Merano and 194 in Bressanone.
Those who want peace of mind go private and pay out of pocket or clog up the emergency room.
Stop unnecessary visits and tests
Let’s start with the numbers. The task force – as stated in the resolution – as a first step is called to analyze the data on the monitoring of waiting times for outpatient services, detected by the Provincial Single Booking Center. Secondly, the offer of services available within public and private affiliated facilities will be analyzed, trying to increase it with additional services, guarantee budgets, etc.
A detailed analysis of the trend in demand for services is also planned to achieve greater appropriateness in prescriptions in the most critical areas. In short, the ASL will try to cut everything that is not needed. Messner said and repeated that “the lists must be reduced both for visits and for diagnostic tests. And since we cannot control the demand, for example we have more than 30 thousand requests for magnetic resonance imaging per year, we will try to check that the requests are not useless”.
A question that has repeatedly raised lively protests from family doctors’ unions: “Visits and tests? We do not prescribe them randomly and we do not ask for useless services. We are required to respect the criteria (Rao) codified at the provincial level about ten years ago. And if they are not good, we need to review them and do it all together”.
Once the task force has a complete picture of the situation, it will have to move to develop corrective actions in the most critical areas. Every three months, a report will be sent to the ASL top management on the progress of the situation to highlight the critical issues detected and the corrective measures implemented.
Task force: the composition
The task force is expected to include a representative of the ASL general management, a district director (monthly meetings are planned), a medical director, a second medical director on the proposal of the health director, a technical-assistance director, the director of the Health Services and Territorial Assistance department and also the director of the Hospital and Specialist Outpatient Services office, the director of the CUP and of the Planning and Controlling department.
The names of the various members are expected within two weeks.
Family doctors excluded
The resolution establishes that the task force can extend participation to other professions. At the moment, no representation of family doctors and the Medical Association is foreseen. The task force will then have to align itself with the coordination unit that the government decree on cutting waiting times requires of each region and province. The provincial council will then have to appoint the ruas, the sole person responsible for healthcare, on the proposal of councilor Hubert Messner.
2024-08-31 08:56:10