New Adventure with the Italian health care system – Part 2

New Adventure with the Italian health care system – Part 2

Monday, October 18th, 2021

The Italian national health care system (SSN) works pretty well in many ways but like any such system it has it’s flaws. I of course couldn’t help but comparing it with the system in the US. On the positive side, everyone is covered and there are few and low priced co-pays. None for your primary care physician and low ones for specialist visits. In my case since I’m over 70 I have rarely had any co-pay. In general the medical costs are much lower in Italy than the US. The prescriptions are either very inexpensive or free – imagine that. On the other side of that coin the non prescription drugs (ibruprofen, aspirin) cost much more. The pharmacies need to make money somehow. The medical care is probably about equal to that in the U.S. Some doctors are better than others and a couple times I changed the primary care physician or specialist. In general I would say that the system is less responsive since it has less money and the patient has more responsibility for his/her medical care. Add to this some quirks of Italian bureaucracy and it can lead to frustration. For instance they requested a bunch of documents that I had to obtain from the health care system itself and from my primary care physician plus prior test results, ecc. prior to check-in at the hospital. Having duly gathered everything I was never asked for several of them during the check-in process.

I was notified of the date to arrive at the hospital for the hip surgery on 5 October in a fasting state at 7:00 AM. Fasting would indicate that the plan was for surgery that day. So being punctual I arrived at that hour and went to a waiting room where there were probably 6 or 7 other people waiting by a few minutes after 7. I waited for over an hour before being called. So why can’t they space out the arrival times? The interview for all of the information during check-in was rather brusque. I had asked via email for a list of personal things that I should bring with me to the hospital that was never answered. So I brought a bunch of stuff including the few prescription medications that I take regularly. It made sense. Maybe all hospitals are this way but they would not accept mine since they were not in the bubble packs as they always come from the pharmacies here. This kind of leads into my complaint of the general lack of information during the entire process. So anyway I was in bed in a room by about 9 AM and was told that the surgery was to be sometime in the afternoon. I can’t really fault the hospital that I couldn’t have it that day since there had been some sort of operating room emergency, however it would have been nice to have that information before 5:30 PM. By that time it was pretty obvious that I wouldn’t have it that day.

The room was really pretty nice with two beds spaced relatively far apart, a bathroom, individual TVs, etc. One thing different from hospital stays that I’ve had in the U.S. is the almost complete lack of privacy. At least in the U.S. there was always a curtain that could be drawn around the bed but here there was nothing and since after the operation I was pretty much always in bed that meant also that all personal bodily functions were done without privacy other than a sheet over me.

So now getting back to the positive side of the stay. I was in the hospital for a total of 9 day. It would have been 8 if not for the one day delay in the surgery. By American standards I think that pretty long but during this time I had physical therapy twice a day for which I’m really grateful. If I had left after only 2 or 3 days it would have been much more difficult because I would have been weaker, had more pain and little experience with the crutches to walk and go up and down stairs. There was kind of a rotating cast of therapists but they all seemed pretty competent and caring except for the one who thankfully I saw for only one afternoon session. The nurses were generally caring and likeable (again with one exception who I mentally thought of as Nurse Ratched – “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” reference).

Finally, I think 2 days before being released from the hospital I was given the date and a suggested time of my release from the hospital. In retrospect I should have asked more questions at that point which I will further explain in the third and final chapter.

One great thing is that Laura came to visit me every day. The visiting hours were from 6 to 7 PM which makes sense because the physical therapy appointments and generally other activities in the hospital shouldn’t be disrupted by visitors and frankly while it was always great to see Laura we generally ran out of things to talk about before the hour was up.

The third chapter will come soon.

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