The survey on perception of corruption in the health sector carried out within the project “A cure for corruption” by Transparency International Italy, Censis, ISPE-Sanità and Rissc caused great debate. In 37% of the Italian healthcare companies would have occurred some cases of corruption over the past five years, about a third of the cases have not been properly treated and wastes in goods and services not directly related to patient care amount to 1 billion euro per year. This was said by the leaders of the 151 health companies who participated in the survey. Data were presented in Rome during the first National Anti-Corruption Day in Healthcare and the resulting comments have an extraordinary viral echo on social network thanks to the hashtag #curiamolacorruzione. However, the President of the National Anti-Corruption Authority Raffaele Cantone calls for caution on numbers and size of the phenomenon, since “in measuring corruption we mainly use perception data” (as reported at the end of the report). Although the perception of corruption leads our country in the last positions in Europe – Italy is 61st at the bottom of the rankings, France is in the mid, 32nd – it would be appropriate to say that transition from percentages to absolute values even shows a virtuous system, or at least among the less contaminated of the public and private sectors, with an average of less than 20 cases per year. So, definitely yes to #curiamolacorruzione, but let’s pay attention not to degrade our NHS and its own excellences.
