Reintroduce the school medicine, with a professional figure present in all institutions to help students and focus above all on prevention. This is the proposal of Beatrice Lorenzin, former Minister of Health and now a member of the Democratic Party. Interviewed by Fanpage.it, Lorenzin explains her project, arguing that the goal is to focus on “professional figures who work in teams with prevention departments, general practitioners and pediatricians“. To do this there could be a nurse in every school, a project for which “you need the money“. Maybe those of My, a tool that according to the former minister “now is needed to be able to experience autumn and winter in a more serene way“. On the other hand, with the temporary suspension of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine trial the times to return to normal are getting longer: “Precisely for this the Mes is needed”, Says Lorenzin, reiterating the importance of school medicine and prevention in a period of emergency like this.
What is your proposal in terms of health and education?
With the Democratic Party we are studying a formal proposal to be presented in Parliament, to give suggestions to the government without wanting to replace us. This is not about the school doctor, an anachronistic proposal, but about the reintroduction of school medicine, with professional figures in school districts with a view to a team that works closely with the prevention departments and in collaboration with medical doctors. general and pediatricians. It means redesigning the departments, strengthening the prevention part, focusing on the healthiness of the territory and on prevention, also thinking about lifestyles. This function needs to be strengthened by creating local teams and including schools in this project.
What figure do you think: a doctor in every school?
I think more of a nursing figure, who can also administer drugs, take care of the most fragile children. A figure who works in contact with doctors, pediatricians. We can also think of a closer collaboration with vaccination centers, of calling – for high school children – an andrologist for visits. We need to make the school healthier, with the aim of postponing the time when people get sick as much as possible thanks to prevention. For the new figure it is difficult to think of a doctor, but there could be a nurse, maybe even only present at certain times, and who works as part of a team to focus on active surveillance, prevention campaigns and visits to be carried out. for example with an orthopedist, to highlight any problems.
A figure that would also serve to better manage the Coronavirus epidemic?
It would be a great tool for day-to-day mapping in schools. And in this period, with Covid, it would be appropriate for the presence of this figure to be fixed. It could take care of measuring the pupils’ fever – without leaving this task to the teachers – it could implement control actions by evaluating with a health eye. And he could act as a liaison officer with the departments.
To carry out such a project there are two obstacles: money and time.
Money is needed. It takes the Mes, More Mes than this you die. For the times I hope they can be short. Minister Speranza was also very sensitive on the issue. I spoke with Undersecretary Zampa and we as Pd want to contribute ideas, but it must be done now. The Mes is needed now, hopefully not in nine months, to be able to experience autumn and winter in a more serene way.
The temporary suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine tests, however, seems to be lengthening the time …
The suspension is news that on the one hand shows the no-vaxes that vaccination and vaccine testing is a very serious matter: if there are problems, they stop. But it also tells us that we will not have the vaccine immediately, the times are getting longer and they are very dilated. Precisely for this we need the Mes now, to be used in a major reform project. We must ensure the care of non-Covid patients and create a prevention mechanism. I make a simile: let’s imagine a fire. In the spring we had a big fire and we responded by sending patients to the burn center (corresponding to intensive care). Now that we have put out the fire below we have the embers, the outbreaks. We’re checking them out now, but we need the firefighters and we need the cameras (ie tampons).
Can it be useful to present a detailed program of projects to be financed with the ESM, starting with the reintroduction of school medicine?
That’s what I’d like to do. Parliament is not the place to elaborate the health strategy from a technical point of view, but we can propose complex ideas to present to the scientific community and the government. It takes a very short time to find solutions. We, on healthcare, have some critical issues that we have been carrying around for some time, so the Mes would also serve to have a more homogeneous system, which fills the weaknesses and allows us to have a system of greater control of outbreaks. We must avoid hospital overcrowding, knowing that we will handle a difficult situation. For example, I’m worried about the flu: every year we have 4 million people with the flu, some of which end up in hospital. People don’t have to be afraid of flu vaccines, there is no risk. I am reading all about flu vaccines, with theses that put doubts on those who so far had no doubts. We need to defeat fake news.
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