“Prevention is the pillar of sustainability of the healthcare system. The problem is that we look a lot, too much, at financing. Of course we have to finance it. Today we are at 134 billion. Can we imagine reaching 152, 250 and so on? No, certainly no”. Of course, “we must finance the supply, but we must intervene on the demand, reduce it, for example with prevention. Correct lifestyles reduce this demand by 60%. 40% of oncological diseases are preventable through healthy lifestyles, Aiom data (Italian Medical Oncology Association). But we must start from taking care of our own life, starting from loving ourselves. So we start with breastfeeding which provides the first passive defense, the mother's antibodies, and then we continue with the Health Calendar”, where you can “note the dates of your health life”. Alongside lifestyles such as “eating well, drinking in moderation, doing physical activity”, for example, “between the ages of 10 and 15, take the HPV vaccination for males and females, the only one currently useful for eliminating a tumor”, and so on “for screening” where women “are also more sensitive to dedicated prevention campaigns”. Francesco Vaia, director general of Prevention of the Ministry of Health, said this in his speech on the occasion of the '40th anniversary of the Italian Federation of Medical Scientific Societies – Towards the States General Fism', taking place in Rome today and tomorrow.
“Today – he underlines – with the ministry we started with the 'blue arrow'. After the 'pink arrow' for women, the blue one is for the prevention of prostate cancer in men. In this way we prepare for old age. Until to date we have imagined “old age” as synonymous with “illness: I have become old and therefore I am ill. This paradigm must be reversed, we must remove this state of morbidity”. In these days, adds Vaia, “I am pursuing the topic of mammographic screening, to be brought forward to 45 years of age and brought to 70 years of age to broaden the population segment. This exposes the ministry and the Government financially. We finance prevention with 5 % not of the GDP, but of the 134 billion of the National Health Fund. It is nothing.”
“The Covid pandemic has exacerbated many pathologies, including nutrition and eating disorders which have increased by 30%. To reverse the trend we must first finance the centers for eating disorders which do a great job, and make structural these funds. This is a first response. The second intervention that the Meloni Government is working on is to make 16 new services free, starting with psycho-therapeutic assistance for those suffering from these eating disorders, including anorexia With the new Lea we will have these additional 16 performances”.
“Prevention must be a true actor of change, because it makes a great contribution to the sustainability of our national health system, intervening on demand. If we intervene on demand, we eliminate 60% of chronic degenerative diseases. To achieve this objective we must do so that people are well, that they don't get sick.” How? “Through the adoption of healthy lifestyles which, however, cannot only be the individual responsibility of the person, who must eat well, follow our Mediterranean diet, not abuse alcohol, not smoke, regularly carry out sporting activities. For prevention today the real challenge is to create an alliance between school, family and health system”.
“Let's take the example of schools”: today “6 out of 10 institutions don't have gyms – Vaia complains – Here, they must be able to have them to allow our children to play sports from an early age. Not only that. The alliance I am talking about must also involve those who administer cities, called to take care of places of sociality, parks, spaces for free time”. For the Prevention Director General, prevention also involves corporate welfare: “We spend 10 to 12 hours in the workplace every day. In this long period of time – he observes – how can we do prevention to combat, for example, sedentary lifestyles? There are projects that we are carrying out with INAIL, and already at an advanced stage – he highlights – which have the worker's well-being as their objective. Prevention cannot be just a statement of principle, but a concrete fact. For this reason there is obviously a need also of money. It is an investment that must go beyond the current 5% of the National Health Fund which is currently allocated to prevention”.
