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European Union of Private Hospitals

The concept of fake news in healthcare

Promoting synergy between the two components of the NHS against fake news and ideological positions, by Barbara Cittadini, President of AIOP

‘The narrative about the private law component of the NHS is strongly ideologised and false. We have presented our social report introducing the concept of fake news in healthcare because, often, when referring to our component, we speak of the private sector, with a legacy of prejudice and as if we were something else compared to the National Health Service’. Thus, Barbara Cittadini, National President of Aiop, guest of Andrea Pancani in the programme Coffee Break, aired on La7 on Saturday 10 February 2024.

“We continue to think in the logic of a private law component and we provide services and performances to our citizens in a way that is absolutely superimposable to that of public hospitals.
We are part of the national healthcare network and are subject to planning by the regions,’ said the president of Aiop, who specified ‘it is always said that we choose not to have emergency rooms or intensive care units. In reality, there are Regions that do not allow us to have them. I cite two examples: Emilia Romagna and Sicily, which, due to regional planning choices, have decided not to ask the private-law component to have emergency rooms and intensive care units.

That is why fake news
We make up for the shortages of emergency rooms in many regions, and in our facilities we take in patients every day that public hospitals cannot accommodate. It must be made clear that we do not select the most remunerative services, but are subject to regional planning. The user,’ continued Cittadini, ‘has no interest in the legal ownership of the facilities, but chooses only on the basis of the effectiveness, efficiency, and punctuality of the response he receives.

The problems in many regions can be traced back to a law, DL 95/2012, which froze the purchase of services from the private law component to 2011. I would like to thank this government that, despite the tightness of resources, had the courage and strength to amend an emergency law of dubious constitutionality, allowing us to be useful in getting rid of waiting lists. When monitoring was done on the resources that had been allocated for the disposal of lists, it emerged that the component I represent had used them in full while the public law component had not. That is why synergy and integration between the two branches of the NHS is important,’ concluded the president of Aiop.

Article published on the AIOP website.