Cagliari, retired pediatricians not replaced: "Hundreds of children without assistance"
Andreozzi (Possible): "No treatment or certificates, unsustainable situation: the mayor takes action with the ASL and the Region"Per restare aggiornato entra nel nostro canale Whatsapp
Thousands of children in Cagliari risk being left without treatment: pediatricians are not enough. And those that do exist have hundreds of more little ones assisted than "the ceiling, set at 880 patients, which should be the number deemed acceptable to guarantee assistance worthy of the name".
The alarm is spreading among parents and has been poured into an agenda of the opposition in the city council, with Giulia Andreozzi (Possibile) as the first signatory.
In the city, according to the latest demographic atlas, there are 13,919 boys and girls aged 0 to 14 (9.17% of the population): 3,644 in the 0-4 age range, 4,737 in the 5-9 year range, 5,538 in the 10-14 years old.
«Up to the age of 6, children must necessarily be followed up by the pediatrician of their choice. From the age of 6 onwards it is possible that they are followed up alternatively by the general practitioner», explains Andreozzi, but it is advisable to rely on the pediatrician until adolescence.
The problem is that «in recent years many paediatricians have retired, without adequate replacement. On December 31, two pediatricians retired, both "maximalist" and January 31 is expected to retire a further pediatrician.
The consequence: "Thousands of children are now without assistance: the ASL has not allowed the replacement to proceed prior to the date of their retirement and today there are no paediatricians in the entire city area with a number of patients lower than the maximum, and the situation will worsen in the coming months.
There is some availability in the hinterland. But these are doctors who are already working on numbers beyond the limit and, in any case, could not absorb all the children left uncovered.
«We will have unassisted mothers and newborns in starting breastfeeding», explains Andreozzi, «children with chronic diseases who will not have prescriptions for medicines, annual visits (essential for prevention and verification of the correct development of children) who will miss , children who will not be able to go back to school after an illness because no one will give them a certificate ».
You risk chaos, in short. For this reason, the centre-left is asking mayor Paolo Truzzu to "intervene with the local health authority of Cagliari and the region to find a solution".
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)