The recent economic crisis coupled with increasing immigration flows are challenging the overall equitability of the Italian health care system, as an increasing number of people with additional needs due to their poor socioeconomic status, while the health system is facing increasingly severe funding constraints. Despite all this, Italy remains one of the countries allowing more equitable access to health care to migrants in Europe. In Italy, both regular migrants and asylum seekers are included in the universal health care system and have the same rights to health care as nationals. Migrants are supposed to be included in service providers’ goal of giving equitable health care for all patients. Irregular migrants are also granted access to health care, with recent provisions aiming at also extending GP care for this group, including children. The main issue is the variability of the implementation of these policy principles across regions and at local level. These variations affect all citizens, not only migrants. In this report we examined two regions where policies for migrant health and integration are traditionally well established. It should be stressed that there is a need for monitoring and tackling health care inequalities across all regions in Italy, with the aim of harmonising policies and their implementation. Data on migrant health and health care utilization are based on citizenship and are of quite good quality compared with many other countries. However, there is a need of a more systematic approach in terms of monitoring the situation at regional level, with regions in the Southern Italy in need of better monitoring, especially in time of increasing immigration flows. Another issue is related to the management of immigration flows from the Mediterranean sea and to detention centres, where Italy has done a lot so far, but where there is a need for better data and analyses in order to inform policy makers, as it is not known to what extent equity is guaranteed in practice on a daily basis, and/or to what extent it is hampered in these sectors. There are currently ongoing processes aiming to develop a health promoting perspective at national, regional, and local level. Multilingual information regarding entitlement and health service use is currently available, although it is sparse on the web. In terms of recommendations we would suggest more effort to be given to tackling regional disparities by fostering a ‘Health in All Policies’ approach and by systematic, comparative monitoring of migrant health and health care inequities in all regions. It would be useful, at national as well as regional level, to involve migrant stakeholders more explicitly in designing health care policies. This report was produced within the framework of the IOM’s EQUI-HEALTH project, in collaboration with Cost Action IS1103 ADAPT and the Migrant Policy Group (MPG). Full details of the research and its methodology are contained in Sections I and II of the Summary Report, which can be downloaded from the IOM website at http://bit.ly/2g0GlRd. It is recommended to consult this report for clarification of the exact meaning of the concepts used.
MIGRANT INTEGRATION POLICY INDEX HEALTH STRAND - Country Report Italy
Margherita Giannoni
Writing – Original Draft Preparation
;
2017
Abstract
The recent economic crisis coupled with increasing immigration flows are challenging the overall equitability of the Italian health care system, as an increasing number of people with additional needs due to their poor socioeconomic status, while the health system is facing increasingly severe funding constraints. Despite all this, Italy remains one of the countries allowing more equitable access to health care to migrants in Europe. In Italy, both regular migrants and asylum seekers are included in the universal health care system and have the same rights to health care as nationals. Migrants are supposed to be included in service providers’ goal of giving equitable health care for all patients. Irregular migrants are also granted access to health care, with recent provisions aiming at also extending GP care for this group, including children. The main issue is the variability of the implementation of these policy principles across regions and at local level. These variations affect all citizens, not only migrants. In this report we examined two regions where policies for migrant health and integration are traditionally well established. It should be stressed that there is a need for monitoring and tackling health care inequalities across all regions in Italy, with the aim of harmonising policies and their implementation. Data on migrant health and health care utilization are based on citizenship and are of quite good quality compared with many other countries. However, there is a need of a more systematic approach in terms of monitoring the situation at regional level, with regions in the Southern Italy in need of better monitoring, especially in time of increasing immigration flows. Another issue is related to the management of immigration flows from the Mediterranean sea and to detention centres, where Italy has done a lot so far, but where there is a need for better data and analyses in order to inform policy makers, as it is not known to what extent equity is guaranteed in practice on a daily basis, and/or to what extent it is hampered in these sectors. There are currently ongoing processes aiming to develop a health promoting perspective at national, regional, and local level. Multilingual information regarding entitlement and health service use is currently available, although it is sparse on the web. In terms of recommendations we would suggest more effort to be given to tackling regional disparities by fostering a ‘Health in All Policies’ approach and by systematic, comparative monitoring of migrant health and health care inequities in all regions. It would be useful, at national as well as regional level, to involve migrant stakeholders more explicitly in designing health care policies. This report was produced within the framework of the IOM’s EQUI-HEALTH project, in collaboration with Cost Action IS1103 ADAPT and the Migrant Policy Group (MPG). Full details of the research and its methodology are contained in Sections I and II of the Summary Report, which can be downloaded from the IOM website at http://bit.ly/2g0GlRd. It is recommended to consult this report for clarification of the exact meaning of the concepts used.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
