The results of the political clash of recent times between the majority and the opposition of the Government, called to confront each other in the short term in the context of certain electoral rounds of far from little importance, seem to have to be decided on the field of health matters in reference to which the common feeling appears more intense and attentive considering its essentiality.

Not only, and not so much, due to the many-complained structural deficiencies of the sector, which emerged, it would seem, in all their evidence in the pandemic and post-pandemic period, but also due to the instrumental organization of the same between public and private.

If on the one hand Elly Schlein (as the undisputed leader, one could say, of the Left in all its composite consistency) would seem to complain both about the insufficiency of the funds allocated and the organizational approach tending towards privatisation, Giorgia Meloni, for her part, although in admitting that the funds for healthcare, even if recognized so far by one's own Government in a consistent manner, in principle would never seem to be enough in consideration of the relevance of the reference sector, to be clear for the citizen it would seem to be an incontrovertible fact, that is that for which healthcare, regardless of the different positions in the field, must still be public since, since it is a constitutionally and universally guaranteed right, the right to health of course, it seems that one cannot in any way find oneself forced to give up treatment when one find yourself in one way or another forced to take advantage of paid healthcare services.

Let's be clear: the Public Health crisis seems to be strongly felt, and probably especially in the South, where many citizens are often forced to move to other Northern Regions in search of cutting-edge centers and thus highlighting a relevant aspect of the problem in its complex, i.e. that linked to territoriality and the present structural deficiencies of the reference organisations.

In the meantime, because, as has been underlined by many, the country seems to need an organic local healthcare system, therefore suitable for guaranteeing healthcare services that can be readily used by all citizens without distinction on site. Therefore, because, even if everything were to be considered and conceded, the need to be satisfied with the utmost promptness would seem to be that of being able to rely on a State and a Region of reference based on each person's origin, which are available to the common and agreed cooperation useful for ensuring levels and quantities of combined services aimed, overall, at overcoming the gap that still exists today between the North and the South of the country, but also between the center and the periphery of the country itself, even within the its territorial articulations.

Finally, because, even beyond and beyond the persistent physiological clash between the Majority and the Opposition, the next and future healthcare cannot fail to be public, strongly participated on an institutional level, appropriately financed as well as efficiently structured in terms of professional human resources. Even more so when, in the opposite hypothesis, the risk presents itself in all its materiality: that is, inherent to the general disaffection towards the institutions as a whole, perceived as inadequate in translating the needs of the territory into useful provisions and measures. And even more so when the need to ensure health, strictly understood, as a fundamental right as it already is, both for the individual and for the community as a whole, and in all its consistency, if we really intend to follow up, and concretely, the Constitutional dictate since health, broadly understood, can only result from a regime of territorially targeted health policies, but also of choices functionally aimed at reducing inequalities to a minimum within individual communities because diseases, in general, do not seem to affect everyone in the same way and not everyone seems to have the same possibility of accessing treatment.

Saying it differently, and to understand each other better at least on an ideal argumentative level: the Public Health System would seem to require a rational program of general reform aimed at achieving systematic efficiency geared to the evolution of times and emerging needs. That it is therefore programmed to have management as a whole, and upstream, centralized, but gradually declined within the individual territorial units on the basis of the specific peculiarities of the territories themselves, in order to achieve the so-called unity in diversity to give broad implementation not only of the universal right to health, but also of that, no less important, of the equality of all citizens also in relation to the national health sector, guaranteeing the full explanation, in the pathological moment of the relationship itself, of the principle of subsidiarity suitable for guaranteeing the prompt replacement of the authority at a higher hierarchical level (i.e. the State) when the one at a lower level (i.e. the Region) is for any reason unable to promptly provide for the needs of its territory.

Well. There could probably be many solution formulas, but all of them should have priority given to the citizen and his needs as a truly advanced state apparatus should place the health problem at the center of its work programme. And currently, in Italy, the Majority and the Opposition should agree on a shared program of interventions for the best common interest and also, last but not least, to strengthen the principle of entrustment of all citizens to the relevant institutions.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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