Maroni presents the health reform for Lombardy

The Governor of Lombardy, Roberto Maroni, presented the regional health reform, at the University, in Varese.

“Today, here in Varese, there is the penultimate stage of the grassroots meetings that we’ve been holding to illustrate the contents of the reform for developing the healthcare system in Lombardy. The last stage will be in Sondrio, at the ‘Mountain’ Health Protection Agency. I wanted to hold these meetings, in order to get the comments and the observations on this important reform, the most important of this legislature, from the people affected. So, this is an opportunity to exchange ideas and to listen, and it’s proving to be very useful,” Maroni explained to doctors and managers of the Varese health system.

“This is a momentous reform, which prepares us for the future. The regional laws that are different from the national laws are usually contested by the Government in the Constitutional Court,” Maroni added. “According to the Ministry of Health, who wrote to us, our law differs from the organisational model of the national health system, but it’s also an innovative law, so innovative that it’s not being contested by the Ministry, who regard it as an original model that should be tested over the next three years, and checked by a joint committee. So, according to the Government, this law prepares us for the future. And if it works, it will become the reference model for the whole system of organising the Italian health service. This is an extraordinary recognition,” Maroni concluded.

“We’ve already started to implement this reform; the next step is to appoint the CEO of the new watchdog agency, by next Monday. After that, the Regional Council will approve the law, which keeps Attachment 1, which concerns the territorial organisation plan. By the end of the year, we will appoint the new CEOs of the new Health Protection Agencies and the new Territorial Healthcare Companies. The times have been set and the schedule will be respected,” Maroni concluded. “Our health system is one of excellence; it costs less than all the others, less than the 5% of the GDP, and yet, it responds better than the others; but it’s a system we want to develop, to adapt and prepare it for the future, when the population will be older and we’ll have more chronic illness to treat. One of the strong points of Lombardy’s new welfare system is the rebalancing of the care between the hospital and the community, with a view to enhancing both systems to provide continuous care. We want to shift from the principle of treating the patient to taking care of him. With this reform, we want to extend the excellence of our hospitals in Lombardy to the care of the patient, once he leaves the hospital, in accordance with the principle of continuous care, so anyone that leaves hospital, must be cared for by those who took care of him inside the hospital itself. We also want to achieve genuine integration between the hospital and the community, when a patient goes from one to the other, to ensure continuity of care.”