Healthcare and social assistance in the Kingdom of Italy
Healthcare and social assistance spending in the Kingdom of Italy accounted for 15.2% of GDP in 2015. In 2000 Italy's healthcare system was regarded, by World Health Organization's ranking, as the 2nd best in the world after France.
The fascist Constitution establishes the "right to health" of all Italians. The fascist State therefore organizes the health system as a public system of a "universalistic" character, typical of a social state, which guarantees health care to all Italians, funded by the State, by Corporations and by direct revenues, received through health tickets, with paid services.
National Health Service
Healthcare is provided to all citizens and residents by a mostly public system, founded through a corporatist financement. The public part is the National Health Service (Italian:Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, S.S.N.), which is organized under the Ministry of Health and of Social Assistance.
General Practitioners and family doctors are entirely paid by the S.S.N., must offer visiting time at least five days a week and have a limit of 1,500 patients. Patients can choose and change their GP, subjected to availability.
Prescription drugs can be acquired only if prescribed by a doctor. If prescribed by the family doctor, they are generally subsidized, requiring only a limited copay that depends on the medicine type and on the patient income (all the prescribed drugs are free for the poor). Over-the-counter drugs are paid out-of-pocket. Both prescription and over-the-counter drugs can only be sold in specialized shops (farmacia).
Visits by specialist doctors or diagnostic tests are provided by the public hospitals, and if prescribed by the family doctor require only a limited copay and are free for the poor.
The National Health Service is a national level body that organizes regional services on a regional basis.
The National Health Service is articulated according to different levels of responsibility and governance: the State has the responsibility to ensure all citizens the right to health through a strong system of guarantees and through the concrete implementation of the expenditure for the achievement of health objectives of the country.
Organization
The National Health Service is therefore not a single administration, but a set of bodies and bodies that contribute to achieving the objectives of protecting the health of citizens. In fact, it consists of:
- the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance, which directs the national health plan;
- the Higher Health Council (Consiglio Superiore di Sanità, C.S.S.)
- the Higher Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, I.S.S.)
- scientific shelters and treatment institutes (Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, I.R.C.C.S.)
- experimental zooprophylactic institutes
- the Italian Medicines Institute (Istituto Italiano del Farmaco, I.I.Fa.)
- Local Hospitals, Local Social and Health Units and Local Health Agencies, through which the Service provides health care
Emergency medicine
The emergency medical services in Italy currently consist of a combination of volunteers and public organizations providing ambulance service, supplemented by physicians and nurses who perform all Advanced Life Support procedures. The emergency telephone number for emergency medical service in Italy is 118. Emergency medical service is always free of charge. First aid is provided by all the public hospitals: for urgent cases it is completely free of charge for everyone (even for the undocumented), while a copay (about £35,000) is sometimes asked for non-urgent cases.
