Waiting lists, duel at prime time between Schlein and Meloni who looks at the replacement powers on the regions

"The competence in matters of health with Title V of the Constitution is of the Regions, but the Government is also available to activate the substitute powers in cases in which the Regions should encounter difficulties. The decree to activate the substitute powers has been ready for some time, an Agreement has not yet been reached, but I am very optimistic that we will succeed in the next few days".

This is how Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni responded during Premier Time at the Chamber of Deputies on the crucial issue for the NHS, where the mechanism of "loyal collaboration" with the governors has jammed, who until now have rejected the Prime Ministerial Decree that provides for intervention from above in the event of their failure to implement the Schillaci law of last August.

"We are not playing at passing the buck as has been said. Quite the opposite - Meloni specified -: what the Government is trying to do despite not having expertise in the organization of healthcare is to do its part to lend a hand because maximum commitment is needed from everyone here, looking at the real great objective of ensuring efficient and fast healthcare. It can be done, as the history of many Regions recalls and that is what we want to achieve, also by calling for responsibility when necessary".

This is the first announcement that Meloni made in the context of a heated debate on healthcare with PD leader Elly Schlein, who focused her questioning precisely on the issues of the NHS.

"Public healthcare is collapsing," Schlein attacked, "between the endless waiting lists, the lack of 65,000 nurses and 30,000 doctors, 40,000 doctors who have already fled abroad and a health migration from South to North that has increased with 4.5 million people who in 2023, according to Istat, have given up on treatment, mostly for economic reasons, and that's 600,000 more than the previous year. We had found a way to immediately put 5 billion into public healthcare but you didn't listen," she said, addressing Meloni. "You launched a hiring plan that disappeared into thin air and you made a fluff decree on waiting lists. The question is why you are dismantling Italian public healthcare."