Roundup: Misspending, frauds cost 6 bln euros to Italy's national health system: survey

One in three public health facilities in Italy were involved in corruption cases in the last 5 years, and 2 million people admitted having paid bribes to get treatments, a study revealed on Wednesday.

Misspending and frauds would cost 6 billion euros (6.84 billion U.S. dollars) to the National Health System (NHS) overall, which amounted to some 5 percent of Italy's health spending, showed the study carried out by CENSIS institute, Transparency International Italy, and no-profit organization ISPE-Sanita.

Misspending alone would be worth 1 billion euros.

The findings were unveiled at a press conference, as Italy marked April 6 as the first national "Integrity Day" to promote transparency in the healthcare system.

"The healthcare keeps representing one of the sectors in Italy most hit by the virus of corruption," Italian Undersecretary for Education, Universities, and Research Davide Faraone said.

Adding to 2 million Italians who admitted having paid bribes to get a "favorable treatment", some 10 million said they paid under the counter for specialist visits, the official added.

The survey was carried out between September and December 2015, and involved some 250 public health facilities across the country, according to Transparency International Italy.

Data on misspending and waste were collected from 2013 NHS public records.

The study included an extensive survey on corruption perceptions among NHS executives, which showed 98.7 percent of them consider corruption as "one of Italy's major issues".

Public calls for tender would be the area most at risk of corruption, according to 82.7 percent of the professionals involved.

"Our health system offers the highest standards of care, and I would take figures (based) on corruption perception with caution," Raffaele Cantone, head of Italy's National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC), told the press conference.

"Yet, I do believe there is a problem of both waste and corruption in the sector, which reduces the quality of the services".

"Public healthcare is a land potentially open to criminals of all sorts, because of the huge turnover it generates," Cantone added.

The same risk was underlined in the study.

"Public healthcare is a perfect playground for both small corrupters, such as those who ask for a bribe to let a patient climb a waiting list... and for large corrupters, who move easily among contracts worth millions and supplies of services difficult to keep under control," the authors wrote.

Italian authorities stressed the need to improve NHS's efficiency and resilience to corruption. Yet, finding the right solution did not appear an easy task, the study also showed.

In fact, some 97.3 percent of the NHS facilities in the survey already have a tightened Code of Conduct to tackle corruption practices within the staff, and 92.6 percent of them have adopted a stricter Regulation for purchasing procedures in accordance with the National Procurement Code.

Despite its many problems, Italy's universal NHS is also highly regarded at international level.

The World Health Organization (WHO) ranked it second best in the world after France in 2000, and Bloomberg considered it the third most efficient after Singapore and Hong Kong in a 2014 survey.

"We must develop antibodies against this problem, starting from its professionals," Anti-Corruption Chief Cantone told the press conference.

"In our anti-corruption plan, we have drawn new guidelines and detected the most critical factors to address, the first of which is the problem of the (long) waiting lists in the NHS". Endit