Italy's Liguria region should create a separate ambulance service dedicated only for elderly people in order to raise the efficiency of health care, Marika Cassimatis, candidate for the presidency of the Liguria Region with the electoral list from the civic society "Constitutional Basis" (Base Costituzionale) told Sputnik
GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th September, 2020) Anastasia Levchenko - Italy's Liguria region should create a separate ambulance service dedicated only for elderly people in order to raise the efficiency of health care, Marika Cassimatis, candidate for the presidency of the Liguria Region with the electoral list from the civic society "Constitutional Basis" (Base Costituzionale) told Sputnik.
From September 20-21, regional elections will take place in Liguria, as well as eight other Italian regions, and will coincide with a constitutional referendum on the reduction in the number of lawmakers.
Italy is the second country in the world after Japan with the largest percentage of an older population � over 65 years old � according to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs statistics. Liguria, in turn, is the region in Italy with the oldest population.
"We seek a health care system distributed over the territory, with home assistance and implementation of telemedicine. Moreover, we propose to establish an ambulance service dedicated to the elderly people and separate from general ambulance in order to provide faster and more effective care for elderly patients," Cassimatis, who is a former member of the Five Star Movement (M5S), said.
She noted that the coronavirus pandemic accentuated the problems that the regional healthcare system has.
"The first wave caught the region unprepared both at the organizational level and at the level of state of health facilities, protection of medical workers and wrong sanitary protocols. I hope that in the last months organization has improved, also when it comes to the number of tests and analyses needed to control the contagion," Cassimatis said.
At the same time, she did not express concern over the risk of contamination related to the voting from September 20-21 and said that proper security measures had been taken.
"I think that voter turnout will be low not because of the fear of the virus but because of a widespread discontent with the politics. We need to vote to change politics," she added.
Italy was one of Europe's hardest-hit countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and was the first epicenter outside of China.
