“If during the pandemic in Italy there had been the socio-health districts designed by Pasquale Trecca”, who was president of the National Association of Italian medical doctors, “it would have been possible to guarantee a more timely health care and rapid response, because in every district there would have been the ‘community doctor’. This figure would have summed up that of the dependent doctor who performs the institutional duties of Hygiene and Public Health, together with his aspect of general practitioner contracted doctor who would have had a relationship with patients and with the territory “. Italo Farnetani, full professor of Pediatrics at the Ludes-United Campus of Malta and historian of medicine, explains this to Adnkronos Salute.
In times of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) and the spotlight on territorial reform, the issue is hot. The expert addressed him today in Foggia at a conference where he took stock of how the health system should be configured after the Covid-19 epidemic. Farnetani starts from the lesson of a doctor from Foggia, Trecca, who “collaborated in the elaboration of the health reform of 1979 in which he proposed to transform the medical practices that have existed in Italy for 90 years, into socio-health districts that should have been present throughout the national territory “.
Following the path traced by Trecca, the pediatrician proposes “the activation of the social health districts which, unlike the current Health Homes, must be more widespread in the area and not be limited only to the provision of welfare services, but also be a point in connection with municipal, company and regional health institutions “. This presence, he continues, “is also important in order to create a flow of data from the territory to the central areas. The result would have been early diagnosis, treatment and prevention and a higher number of vaccinated”.
For this reason, according to the pediatrician, the reopening of the districts and the restoration of the role of community doctor would be important. “During the pandemic – he remembers – at the beginning hospital assistance had to be guaranteed, immediately after the laboratory activity to guarantee diagnosis and tracing. Third point: positive patients had to be identified. Fourth point: the search for fragile patients . And a doctor present in the area would have had elements of knowledge of the local realities and of the people that would have been fundamental and could have facilitated any task “.
“Last point: the vaccination campaign. Undoubtedly the contribution of the community doctor here would have been decisive – the expert is convinced – as it could have represented a direct contact between doctor and patient”.
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