A few months after the establishment of the XIX Legislature, the requests of the Group ‘Health: a good to defend, a right to promote’ remain unchanged to the national and regional institutions which, at the annual Institutional Forum underway in Rome, takes stock of the policies oncology in Italy, between access to diagnosis and innovation, management of chronicity in the area, labor rights and digitization. Several goals were achieved in 2022 – explains the Group in a note – but there are still many goals to be achieved in the next five years of the new government: access to early diagnosis and innovation, management of chronicity, involvement of patient associations at decision-making tables, in rapid growth, organization of care, networks of skills and professionalism between hospitals and local medicine, healthcare digitization. All this because new needs are emerging and health must continue to be a priority on the Italian political agenda.
For the Group, which is constantly growing, with as many as 45 patient associations including most of the neoplastic pathologies, experts of the Technical-Scientific Committee, representatives of the Institutions and members of the parliamentary Intergroup ‘Together for a commitment against cancer’, the Forum represents a restart and renews the commitment once again in support of oncological and onco-haematological patients through the 2022/2027 Legislature agreement, which sees the transversal participation of all political forces, and with the recent reconstitution, in the Chamber, of the ‘Parliamentary Intergroup.
“It is an important moment for our Group, which is growing beyond our expectations. Attention to the oncological and onco-haematological patient has increased considerably and substantially in recent times and, I believe, with significant results – declares Annamaria Mancuso, coordinator of the Group ‘Health: an asset to defend, a right to promote’ and president of Salute Donna Onlus – I have to thank all those who have supported us over the years for this. However, we are only halfway there, the world of science and healthcare is evolving rapidly and we must keep pace, to provide assistance capable of combining patient care and attention with the sustainability of the system”.
Speaking of the “tepid but important steps forward” made, Mancuso recalls “the National Oncology Plan, for which we have carried out intense pressure activity with politically oriented acts, awarded with the Cancer policy award. We are now awaiting – he adds – the passage at the State-Regions Conference for the agreement, a decisive moment that will require all our commitment. Another step forward concerned the approval of the first regional law, in Lazio, on psycho-oncology. An effort that lasted 3 years: now we want a also carried out at national level. The approval of a historic transversal enabling law for the reform of the law of behavior and paid leave of patients with cancer was touched upon – continues Mancuso – And then the great issue of the participation of associations of patients to decision-making processes, for which we have requested the attention of the parliament and the Ministry of Health.A lot of work still awaits us, the road is long and uphill – he concludes – but we will go forward with confidence in the awareness of our means, always alongside the sick ”.
During the event, the awards of the fourth edition of the Cancer policy award, the prize reserved for good health policy, were conferred. A unique initiative in Italy featuring the representatives of national and regional institutions who have distinguished themselves for having presented important political guidelines for the improvement of the management of patients with cancer. Starting next year, a new session dedicated to candidates of hospital structures that pay particular attention to patients with priority reception, care and treatment pathways will be inserted.
Cancer is on the rise worldwide: 18 million new cases were recorded in 2018 and according to World Health Organization indications, cases will rise to around 22 million in 2030. Italy every day more than a thousand new cases of cancer are diagnosed: in 2021 there were over 377 thousand new diagnoses, of which 195 thousand among men and 182 thousand among women. Breast, colorectal, lung, prostate and bladder cancer are the most common malignancies. In our country there are almost 4 million cancer patients, more than 6% of the entire population. The survival and quality of life of patients improve, but the disparities in access to screening, early diagnosis and innovative therapies remain, which determine the times and quality of services that are profoundly uneven and unfair.
The new Legislature Agreement of the Group “Health: a good to defend, a right to promote” tries to give answers to these critical issues and to the new needs of patients, which emerge overwhelmingly, which in 12 points asks the parties for a commitment for the next 5 years of Legislature for the approval of the law on the subject of extension of the period of work and paid leaves for workers suffering from cancer. Institutions will have to be solicited on the subject of precision medicine to allow all patients to receive a broad tumor profiling nationwide through NGS tests and thus guarantee the most targeted therapies and the sustainability of the system. Strong attention is paid to the participation of patient associations in national and regional institutional tables, also in the light of the recent policy act of the Ministry of Health.
There is also a pressing request to institutionalize psycho-oncology services in oncological and onco-haematological structures and the inclusion of case manager and data manager figures to support patients in their path and in support of clinical research. There is also the theme of networks of skills and professionalism between hospitals and territories in reference to the innovations concerning territorial medicine.