The right to oncological oblivion, that is, the possibility for those who have recovered from tumor pathologies to regain possession of the status of a non-sick person; the progress of cancer screening before and after Covid 19; the determining role that an adequate territorial oncology could play; the need to be able to implement good cancer networks at national level: they are the many issues on the table in the four days organized by FAVO, Italian Federation of Voluntary Associations in Oncology, for the XVII National Day of the cancer patient. The event will continue until Sunday 15 in the Roma Eventi Piazza di Spagna congress center.
“The Federation is fighting for the recognition of some fundamental rights of cancer patients – he explains Francesco De Lorenzo, president of FAVO – such as the right to work during therapeutic treatment and the right to have transient disability recognized when undergoing chemotherapy. Then there are other aspects to report, such as for example deficiencies in health care, access to screening and diagnosis“.” We have always fought – he underlines Elisabetta Iannelli, general secretary of FAVO – so that there are not only the best possible treatments, not only rehabilitation after the acute phase of the disease to return the sick to a full and dignified life, but we are facing a further step: not only the curability of cancer, but the fact that we can define the person cured of cancer “.
“Denied health has been a major disturbance for therapies; the risk is that cancer will become the leading cause of death. From 2020, compared to 2019, screenings for cancer patients have been two and a half million fewer: 45.5% for colorectal cancer, 43.4% for cervical cancer and 34.7% for mammography “, remembers Marcella Marletta, director of the Observatory on the welfare condition of cancer patients.
On the topic ofterritorial oncology and the implementation of oncology networks at the national level has intervened Paola Varese, scientific director of FAVO: “One of the challenges that this year we are launching in the 2022 relationship with the friends of AIOM and various other scientific societies is taking care of the sick also in the territory. This is the new challenge: we know that about 30% of cancer patients could receive treatment at home with an immense impact on the quality of life. Let’s think about travel: when you don’t have a cancer center nearby you have to move to another city, where you are taken care of. We must think of a new territorial oncology, with a network work, not detached from research centers, from hospital centers: we must think of a real hospital-territory integration “.
“In Campania we have worked a lot on the digitization of the route, we have created – he explains Sandro Pignata, from the Cancer Institute of Naples – a computer system that allows the patient to be guided towards the centers for a specific type of pathology and in a bidirectional sense towards the territory, because it is right for the patient to continue treatment near his residence “.
Finally, what is the role of politics? He has no doubts there senator Paola Binetti: “The commitment of politics for cancer patients is very high, very strong in principle, also because there is no person who has not had direct experience in the family or among those they love. The sensitivity is very strong, but we must pass from statements of principle to concrete facts. We have witnessed a position taken by Parliament through motions, questions, bills, totally in line with the needs of patients. Then we saw the absolute flop when these initiatives they must be translated into concrete actions. It is as if the ministry were acting as a rubber wall: all things, even good ones, that are brought to the ministry, slide into a sort of swamp. The PNRR, this reform to which we are all dedicating hopes and expectations , should start from restarting the public administration machine and guaranteeing modernization, modernization and efficiency, even using first, more and better, all the means of digitization “.
