Gemmato, ‘no to private emergency rooms, I say this as a convinced supporter of the NHS’

2023-10-19 15:16:00

“As a convinced advocate of public health, I am and remain opposed to private emergency rooms. Article 32 of the Constitution is clear, the ‘Republic protects health as a fundamental right of the individual and interest of the community, and guarantees free treatment to the indigent'” This is what Marcello Gemmato, Undersecretary of Health, told time.news Salute on the sidelines of the presentation of “Alopecia Areata Day”, the National Alopecia Areata Day.

“However – underlines Gemmato – the private sector if it has an agreement is fine because the citizen must not be interested in who provides the service, the citizen must be validated by universalism, therefore the gratuitousness of the service and the reasonable terms of its provision, especially the terms of prevention”. If “today I have to have a predictive diagnostic test, I am thinking for example of breast cancer screening which, if diagnosed in time, leads to recovery in 83% of cases, that test must be carried out in the public. But if it is carried out in the private sector with an agreement, at zero cost for those who do it, the citizen does not care whether it is the State that provides the service directly or not, the important thing is that he accesses the screening quickly”. “Private subsidized healthcare works because it becomes a branch of the NHS. Instead, thinking that those who are richer can access healthcare services to skip the queue is unacceptable”, he concludes.