Your money or your life!

I’m not very lucky when it comes to the public health system. The morning after I found out I was pregnant, my (former, rude, unprofessional) doctor went on holiday for 2 weeks, and I was left searching the countryside for a substitute doctor who turned out to be a smelly old man in a dirty, fly-invested office. Having changed doctors (go me for being proactive and not putting up with the stronza!), I called my new one to book an appointment so that I can pick up the referrals I need from my gynecologist and go get my 16-week blood work done at the lab (it’s actually more complicated than it sounds, believe it or not!) and what did I find? She was literally just leaving in the car for a 2-week holiday! Over a bad connection she gave me the name of a substitute but I didn’t recognize the name of the village he’s meant to be in, nor did I find it on Google maps! As I said, I’m not very lucky with these things…
Having procrastinated over what to do for the best part of a week, I started to worry that my scary gyno might yell at me for not getting the tests done right away, so I went to the blood lab to see whether I could get them done anyway (in my experience when it comes to the referral, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t – as in you pay either way!). I was told that with the referral I would pay 37 euros, and without it 39. Not surprising given the way things are run around here, but to be honest there seems to be no consistency WHATSOEVER in what you pay for, when and why.
Originally I was under the impression that pregnant women in Italy were exempt from all payments, with the exception of certain tests, and in fact the guy at the blood lab sort of confirmed this for me – HOWEVER, you still pay for each individual referral (“ticket”), and the costs depends partly on which region you are in, and partly what the ticket is for. I was under the impression that the ticket had a standard price of 17 euros, or thereabouts. In fact, for my last round I had 5 tickets at a cost of 100 euros, as I had to do a number of different tests and apparently there is a limit of 8 tests on a single ticket. This time around I had no ticket, but had I made it that far, the cost would have been 37. With only 6 tests, this should have been one single ticket, so how come so much? Confused?? Me too!
I hear that women in other parts of Italy pay anything from nothing to 20 euros per round of tests, whereas most people I know in this part of the world (Lombardia) tend to pay up to 100 euros, like me. Is this a geographical lottery or is it yet another example of Italy being so disorganized that no one really understands the system and so each local authority implements it own version of the truth in the hope that nobody notices? It’s true that I have chosen a fairly pricey private gyno (although taking into account the fact that the waiting lists for check-ups in the public system are so long, my kid would be starting school before I get to the second ultrasound…) but for the rest of it, I seem to be paying out even in the supposedly “subsidized” part of the process. I consider myself fairly well-informed, am totally integrated and fluent in the language, so am not a victim of the lack of cultural understanding. There just doesn’t seem to be a way around it. Medical expenses so far (including the standard gyno appointments) have set me back over 500 euros, and I’m in week 17! It feels like I have a long and costly road ahead of me!!!