In hospitals price increases by 70%: the bill costs 1 billion more

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For hospitals, there is a very high bill to pay this year that will cost at least a billion more than the 1.3 billion paid before the outbreak of the energy crisis. The increases in hospitals – bills in hand for the first 6 months of this year – are on average more than 70% higher, with the most penalized South that will pay almost double (96%): if prices remain these, something not taken for granted because other increases could come, the final bill will be greater than 940 million.

To pay, hospitals will have to move the available resources by first cutting the staff, those doctors and nurses who serve as an example to recover the waiting lists that have lengthened with Covid. And then giving up investing in health technologies that serve to better treat patients. In short, in the end, it will be the quality of the health service and therefore the Italians who will pay the price.

Fiaso – the Federation that brings together the managers of Asl and hospitals – in a large survey that will be published soon and which is anticipated here in its main numbers. FIaso, in fact, wanted to measure the impact of the energy bill through a survey on a sample of Italian healthcare companies.

Electricity costs + 75%, heating + 68.7%

The survey on expensive bills in hospitals and local health authorities involved 38 structures distributed throughout Italy. Here is what the first data say: the comparison between January-June 2021 and the same semester 2022 shows a cost increase of 72.2 percent. In particular, expenditure on electricity increases by 75% and expenditure on heating by 68.7%. On average in the hospitals and in the Asl of the North the increase was equal to 62.2%, in the companies of the central Italy it grows slightly and stands at 66.6%. While companies in the south recorded an increase of more than 96 percent. This fact is perhaps due to the lower investments made in the South for the energy efficiency of buildings and perhaps also to the fact that in the North, where there is the greatest need for heating, the energy issue has always been very much attention.

In any case, the estimate made by Fiaso at the beginning of the year had been an increase of 30%, but the real data return a decidedly heavier situation with increases of at least 72%, only in the first six months of 2022. This means that the 400 million allocated for the expensive health bills in the latest aid decree is not enough. “We had asked for 1.5 billion: at the end of the year we will also reach higher prices of 7o%, but even if this trend remains the 2022 bill should be worth at least 2.2 -2.3 billion, at least 1 billion more than in the past, ”warns Giovanni Migliore, president of Fiaso. Which reaffirms the unique condition of hospitals: «It is not possible to ration the energy for a diagnostic exam, a pet or a CT scan. The temperature must also be kept constant as well as the lighting, which is why we were not involved in Cingolani’s plan for energy saving ».