Rome, 6 Nov. (Adnkronos Health) – “Confindustria medical devices reiterates the urgency of resolving” the criticality of the payback “for today, for the past and for the future: it is a rule that penalizes all citizens, patients, families and businesses. The fact that spending was not adequate to cover the real health needs of the population cannot be blamed on businesses. So we ask for its cancellation.” Anna Citarella, vice president of Confindustria Dispositivi Medici, said this on the second day of Welfair 2024, the Fare Sanità Fair, organized by Fiera Roma and Experience – Fare Sanità in collaboration with LTM&Partners and IdeaGroup and ongoing until tomorrow in the capital. The measure to which Citarella refers – we read in a note – requires companies to pay over 1 billion euros retroactively to compensate for the overrun of regional expenses accrued up to 2018 and will demand further billions for the following years. According to estimates, the payback – by charging many companies an amount higher than their annual budget – will put over 1,400 businesses at risk of closure, putting the jobs of over 190 thousand workers at risk.
“Pmi healthcare reiterates the urgency of resolving the payback problem also for medical devices – adds Gennaro Broya de Lucia, president of Pmi Italia – which creates a devastating impact on the provision of healthcare services to citizens and on the stability of a strategic sector such as of Italian MedTech which is about to be swept away by an unfair, unjust and illegitimate rule. We ask the Ministry of Health to immediately take action to resolve the disaster.”
Even in the management of the emergency room, a clear change was requested on issues such as “finding staff willing to live the life of an emergency doctor with a free weekend a month – says Adolfo Pagnanelli, director of Dea Policlinico Campus Bio-Medico Rome – Su 100 We are unable to fill even 50 places up for competition. And this year 80% of the emergency medicine specialization places will be deserted”. Blue zones were also discussed at the event. “A certain modernity, with poor eating habits, increasingly stressful lives and the reduction of daily movement are jeopardizing the traditional blue zones,” explained Jorge Eduardo Vindas Lopez, founder and director of the Asociación Peninsula de Nicoya, the blue zone of the Costa Rica. But if some blue zones are shrinking, new blue zones are appearing, such as certain areas of Martinique and Guadeloupe and Galicia.
“The great opportunity that studies on those open-air laboratories that are the blue zones offer us – underlined the neuroscientist Giovanni Scapagnini – is to transfer elements of positive biology to as many people as possible: to transmit the ‘secrets of well-being’ to everyone super healthy. An operation of enormous value in a context like the Italian one where the average life expectancy is 85 years, but healthy life expectancy stops at 60″. To reduce the gap it is necessary “to think about an older age in culture and society – observed the Honorable Paolo Ciani, secretary of the XII commission of the Chamber of Deputies on social and health policies – In the last 200 years there has been a great deal of reflection about childhood. A similar reflection and a similar cultural development on the age of the elderly has not yet been made and it is time to do it.”
The experts also discussed non-transmissible pandemics such as lipedema, a pathology recognized by the WHO only in 2018, which – explained Sandro Michelini, angiologist and president of the international association Lwa, Lipedema World Alliance – is a chronic, underestimated pathology, multifactorial and highly physically and psychologically disabling, on which a lifestyle that keeps inflammation under control has a very positive impact”.
The good news is that over 70% of the main causes of mortality, associated with pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, metabolic syndrome, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, can be prevented simply by improving one’s lifestyle: calorie restriction, exercise physical activity, quitting smoking and reducing exposure to pollutants can modulate the expression of genes. “The latest research – highlighted David Brenner, professor of Cancer Metabolism in the United States – tells us that the difference between chronological age and biological age is not genetic, but epigenetic; that is, due to the expression of genes that cause cellular aging and which is driven by factors such as inflammation. Factors, in turn, particularly strongly linked to nutrition.” On these bases, the doctor and scientist Eugenio Luigi Iorio founded the Popular University of Lifestyle Medicine in Ascea in 2014, which is based on four pillars: nutrition, physical exercise, spirituality and social integration.
From this perspective, cities must be rethought as a health factor and analyzed as a risk factor. “By 2030 – recalled Fabio Mosca, full professor of Paediatrics and delegate of the rector on Urban Health issues at the University of Milan – 70% of the population will live in cities and this will lead to overcrowding in urban centres. We need to turn our gaze to Northern European contexts that are adopting more sustainable lifestyle models. Encourage gentle mobility, increase green areas which reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases and improve mental health. It is necessary to adopt urban planning oriented towards health protection that can reduce the negative effects of climate change”.
Regarding gender equality, it was remembered during the event that in healthcare 7 out of 10 healthcare workers are women, but less than 3 out of 10 occupy a leadership position. It’s not just an issue of equality. “It is a central theme – remarked Monica Calamai, general director of ASL Ferrara, president of the Association of women protagonists in healthcare – It is one of the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, it is objective 5, to eliminate gender. Over the years we have focused our attention on gender violence rather than on gender medicine which is another way of saying: personalized care suited to the individual person. The differences between men and women are not linked solely to the genital and reproductive systems, but are linked to a multiplicity of factors that influence both the genesis of the disease and the response to treatments and responses to scientific research”.
Finally, Angelo Aliquò, general director of Ao San Camillo Forlanini, pointed out: “A society where investment in research is more civilized, better off and where the quality of life is better”. Public and private can collaborate towards this goal. “When it comes to research, the objectives must be ambitious. Much more can be done than has been done so far. We must not place limits on the possibility of collaboration and synergy, but rather – he concluded – take advantage of each other”.
