Insights from the XXI National Congress of SIS118 in Casamassima, Italy

The XXI edition of the National Congress of the Italian Emergency Medical Service Society (SIS118) concluded in Casamassima (Bari), in collaboration with the Free University Giuseppe Degennaro (LUM), held from May 29th to 31st.

The themes addressed

Numerous scientific topics, managerial challenges, and managerial aspects were addressed over the three days by authoritative speakers, both Italian and foreign: from time-dependent acute pathologies to clinical networks in emergency medicine, from severe operational challenges in the field, both territorial and hospital, to the multiple compelling needs that make the national legislative reform of the Territorial Emergency System 118 indispensable and urgent; from examining the new possibilities of economic framework, and respective valorization, of the emergency medicine sector to the technological innovation that imposes the realization of a “connected” Territorial Emergency System 118 in real-time, through the most modern aids provided by new telemedicine technologies, with scenarios of greater managerial complexity; from the most modern frontiers of excellence training and training of operators, possible with the new simulation technologies, to the possibilities of support for evaluative, diagnostic, and therapeutic moments, through the use of artificial intelligence; from the permanent training of civil society, and in particular of the national school population on life-saving maneuvers, to scientific research and experimentation of new rescue methods, aimed at the most significant reduction of the “therapy-free interval” whenever there is an imminent danger of losing life, with aerospace as an effective tool for community cardioprotection and aerial support for advanced resuscitation of critical patients (SEUAM experimental project by SIS118 – Sanitary Emergency Urban Air Mobility).

Mario Balzanelli’s words

Mario Balzanelli, newly re-elected national president of SIS118 for the fourth term 2024-2026, expressed extreme satisfaction: “The new era of reforms in healthcare sees, today more than ever, with a character of evidence that can be defined – based on objective data – overwhelming, the Territorial Emergency System 118 as the “time-dependent custodian of the life of the Italian population”, because it enters, through all its operators, doctors, nurses, driver-rescuers, into the homes of citizens, rushes, not without risks and dangers to their personal safety, onto the streets, intervenes with competence in any environment, even the most hostile, and – in fact – saves lives, saves countless human lives, every day, every month, every year. This is the objective, unique, determining, primary, and irreplaceable strength of the “System 118”.

At the conclusion of the congress, SIS118 strongly urges the government, after almost 7 years of motivated and more than documented continuous solicitations, all systematically unheard, to valorize the 118 System, and therefore to valorize its operators, strengthening it in the various operational articulations and components that – all together – serve, with strenuous dedication, the State and the community. SIS118 urges the government, with force, not to always turn the other way, to distinguish itself from all the governments that have preceded it for about twenty years, allowing, due to irresponsibly total stubborn indifference, as well as in some cases, with the assumption of technically absurd and reckless decisions, contrary to what is instead due in terms of correctness and institutional competence, as well as ignoring what is widely deserved by the operators, if the imposing tangible evidence of results were taken into account (COVID-19 teaches), the progressive evolution of a process of abandonment if not of real “destruction” that for some years now, for example, has literally been driving all doctors away from the System in mass, in all regional territories, and gradually reducing nurses as well, worsening, in the end, and certainly not improving, on the skin of citizens, the quality and excellence of the rescues, of which they instead have full and sacred rights.

“I thank, sincerely – concludes Balzanelli – the Free Mediterranean University “Giuseppe Degennaro” of Casamassima, and in particular Prof. Francesco Albergo, Operational Director of the same, for the authoritative support and the extraordinary, virtuous, intense collaboration, certainly bearer of upcoming additional, important national initiatives, as well as the Strategic Direction of the ASL Company of Pescara, and Dr. Aurelio Soldano, Director of the Emergency Department of the province of Pescara, for having signed with SIS 118, precisely during the congress days, an agreement for the training paths – permanent and recurring, on the theme of emergency medicine for all its operators.”

Sources

• SIS118 press release