Private clinics approve the Government’s stop to the Zangrillo bill: “Common sense and health protection have prevailed”

Mariastella Giorlandino, President of the U.A.P., the union of clinics, polyclinics, institutions and private hospitals, expresses gratitude for the Government's choice to block the entry into force of the Legislative Decree. CD. “Cut Waiting Lists”, which unjustifiably implements what is included in the D.D.L. Zangrillo. It was, in fact, a legislative forcing which under the guise of breaking down the lists […]

Mariastella Giorlandino, President of the U.A.P., the union of clinics, polyclinics, institutions and private hospitals, expresses gratitude for the Government’s choice to block the entry into force of the Legislative Decree. CD. “Cut Waiting Lists”, which unjustifiably implements what was included in the D.D.L. Zangrillo. It was, in fact, a legislative stretch which, under the guise of breaking down waiting lists and guaranteeing citizens quicker access to treatment and prevention, only represented a favor to some lobbies.

“IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A BENDING OF THE RULES”

In essence, pharmacies were authorized to carry out “medical” services such as electrocardiograms and cardiological tests, blood samples and, in general, all laboratory diagnostic services (as well as some telemedicine) without respecting all the structural, professional and logistical requirements already required of affiliated private and authorized private healthcare facilities and affiliated private hospitals, pursuant to Legislative Decree 502/92, which number 95,000 facilities nationwide and employ over 350,000 workers. It would not have been a “simplification” – clarifies President Giorlandino – but, on the contrary, a real distortion of the existing rules for the exercise of the services health and diagnostics posing a serious danger to the health of Italians. This is because the pharmacist does not possess the cognitive and technical-instrumental tools to transform the simple report into a report accompanied by units of measurement, reference intervals and decision-making limits, elements, the latter, which are required, together with the guarantee and control of analytical validity, exclusively to laboratory medicine professionals and, therefore, only to public and private laboratories. The question arises: who would bear civil and criminal responsibility in the event of a diagnostic error? In the face of a report issued by the pharmacy not signed by a biologist or interpreted by a medical specialist”.

THE APPEAL TO MATTARELLA E ZANGRILLO

For these reasons, the U.A.P. “appealed to President Mattarella, as guarantor of constitutional respect, as well as to Minister Schillaci, also a doctor, to ask for a control over what was happening, in order to guarantee uniform application of the already existing rules to all the actors of the market (clinics, polyclinics, but also pharmacies), in order to guarantee the protection of citizens’ health and fair and adequate information to the population”.