Responding to healthcare needs of different religious communities: implications for the Italian National Health Service.

Abstract

Background: One of the challenges that our Italian National Health Service is facing is the structural change of society, regarding the migratory flows recorded in the last thirty years with the consequent increase in faithful who follow religions other than the Catholic one.

Aim of the study: This study highlights the critical issues due to religious indications of different faiths which can have implications for our healthcare system. The study analyses the different concept of health, illness, well-being and pain, life and death, gender issues, rules regarding diet, fasting and drugs that can be taken by the patients. Religious norms regarding procreation, termination of pregnancy, and the use of contraceptive methods are also considered; as well as euthanasia, organ donation and the specific needs for end-of-life rites in different religious faiths, as they are presented in the literature and as they emerged in the dialogue with the national representatives of the religious faiths that make up the Interreligious Table of Rome. Conclusions and future perspective. The complexity of this relatively recent Italian reality necessarily leads to an in-depth analysis of religious and cultural diversity. The National Health Service must face a series of changes which concern both the adaptation of health structures and the adequate preparation of health workers, who are called upon to know how to communicate and offer care and assistance to all.