5274 New Charge for Hospital 'A&E'

Currently under discussion are new charges for 'Pronto Soccorso' (Accident & Emergency dept) in hospitals in Italy. I [I]believe[/I] this was actually accepted yesterday following further debate on the current Finance Bill going through the Italian parliament.

The famous [I]'ticket'[/I] will now be payable for visits to the Pronto Soccorso. The proposed charge is to be €26.....

From purely a 'personal' point of view, while I think that €27 is a bit steep (£15.50 - $33.30 ), it will hopefully deter those [I]time wasters[/I] who will go to A&E for even a slight cough, - in fact for anything at all. I wouldn't mind seeing a similar (though maybe a smaller sum) system put in place in the UK where waiting times in A&E are often 'beyond a joke'.

Here is the news item:
[url]http://www.ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/italia/news/2006-11-13_1131658.htm[/url]

Edited by Carole B to add link.