Reversing growing healthcare commercialisation trends | Rossella De Falco and Rosa Pavanelli's open-editorial makes the headlines of Italian newspaper Il Manifesto
On the very first page of today’s edition of Il Manifesto, one of the most important national media in Italy, you can read the op-ed signed by Rossella De Falco, GI-ESCR’s Programme Officer for the Right to Health and Rosa Pavanelli, General Secretary of Public Services International (PSI). The editorial exposes how Lombardy’s response to the pandemic has led to a tragedy, due to the level of privatisation of healthcare in the region. it also recalls Word leaders, who met in Rome last 21 May to discuss pandemic preparedness, that they failed to address one of the most important lessons from Italy’s experience during the crisis: commercialisation of healthcare can kill.
How could Lombardy, one of the wealthiest regions in Italy and in the world, be so ill-equipped to respond to the pandemic, in comparison to other regions in the same country, and to other countries at global level? Several structural factors have started to clearly emerge.
This open-editorial is in Italian. it will soon be available in English, Spanish and French.
There is no more time to lose; we cannot wait for the next pandemic and the next catastrophe: world health leaders must recognise the lessons from the Lombardy case and from other parts of the world, and reverse the race to the commodification of healthcare, which costs lives: this is the tragic lesson from the pandemic that global leaders, meeting on 21 May in Rome for the Global Health Summit, forgot to discuss. In February 2020, a column of military vehicles transported the coffins of COVID-19 victims from the Bergamo cemetery, unable to cope with the high number of dead, to other regions.