Councilor Puglia reports to cancer patient MRI scheduled for March 2028

A 63-year-old woman with a brain tumor will have to wait until March 2028 to have a contrast-enhanced MRI. The case is reported by the regional councilor of Puglia and provincial secretary of the League of Foggia, Napoleone Cera, who announces an urgent questioning of the governor Antonio Decaro.

In the note, the councilor claims that "there is no priority code on the prescription because the family doctor didn't feel like putting it. The reason, as it emerges, is the climate that reigns in medical practices: requests for explanations from the Foggia Local Health Authority to doctors who prescribe urgently, within the crackdown on priority codes desired by the Region, which has announced audits and checks in the districts".

"And yet - he notes - with code B that exam should be guaranteed within ten days. And the local health authorities themselves, in the plans presented in January, had promised protection paths for cancer and fragile patients".

"We have reached the point of absurdity - declares Cera -: a woman with cancer waits 16 months for a test that she needs now. The most serious thing is that it is not an error in the system: it is the result of a political choice. This Region has decided that the problem with waiting lists is the doctors who write 'urgent', and not the tests that are not carried out. This puts doctors under pressure, it spreads fear in the clinics. And in the end, it is always the patient who pays".

Cera announces an urgent question to the president of the regional council to find out "how many requests for clarification have been sent to general practitioners in the province of Foggia on urgent prescriptions, with what criteria and what happened to the paths dedicated to cancer patients. He also requests that the patient be taken care of immediately and that the exam is scheduled within the times that her illness requires".