Between March and December 2020, 3 million Italians had to give up medical care, specialist visits and interventions due to the economic difficulties that came with the Covid pandemic and the lockdown. The research is by Facile.it tells how much the pandemic has affected even those who did not get sick from the coronavirus.
The health pandemic goes beyond Covid-19, affecting millions of patients by denying them access to treatment. 32.8 million Italians had postponed visits, examinations and operations, despite being booked for some time: 73.6 percent of those scheduled to have an appointment had referrals and 13 million patients had their appointments canceled.
Among those who have suffered a postponement or cancellation, 30.2% of the interviewees chose to carry out the check in a private facility, 31% in public facilities, 38.8% did not have any reprogramming.
Delaying or skipping a visit means putting yourself at risk for a disease or not catching an illness in time. Failure to diagnose many diseases will weigh on the health system in the coming years. Those postponed are oncological and cardiological visits, but also gastroenterology and urology visits. The postponement took an average of almost two months, but in 68% of cases there is no date for an appointment and for some specialties, including oncology and cardiology, the wait is longer than average.
Many requests were met by private healthcare. 30.2 percent of those who told of referrals among the interviewees. They are seven million patients and they did it because they feared the disease would get worse and, in 12.6 per cent of cases, because the insurance coverage that covered the costs.
However, the costs of the visits are higher than those of the public service. 73.2 percent of respondents explained that they had paid using their savings, 16.6 percent made use of health insurance, 9.1 percent asked for a loan from friends, family or financial companies. The average loan amount is just over 6000 euros to be repaid in four years. The average age of applicants is 46. Those who gave up treatment did so out of fear of Covid and because they were discouraged by waiting lists, as well as economic difficulties.
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