The shortage of doctors and personnel in the public health sector is "a national emergency, not just Sardinian".
The president of the Region Christian Solinas said: "If it is true that the blocking of turnover decided by the previous regional governments has dramatically expanded the shortages of staff in the hospitals and territorial services of the island, it is true that other factors too, common to all the Italian regions, have contributed to accentuate the problem and have laid the foundations for a further worsening of the situation ”.
For years, Solinas stressed, “the problem of the progressive depletion of personnel has been ignored, hiding the dust under the carpet without having the ability to look to the future and intervene on the causes of what would become a serious national problem. On the contrary, we proceeded lightly to an exasperated search for savings, for balanced accounts, for an apparent budgetary consolidation without considering that the price would have been paid by the citizens with an increasingly troubled service, inadequate structures, obsolete equipment, lists waiting and inefficiencies ".
It is a situation "that no longer admits delays or omissions", he continues.
The choice of the limited number in the Faculties of Medicine and in the health professions “largely explains the shortage of staff, and it is for this reason that prompt action must be taken on this aspect. But it is not enough, and above all it is not enough to face the emergency in the short term, given that the length of the course of study determines that a young person who is enrolled in medicine today will be able to practice between 6-9-11 years ”.
THE NUMBERS - The alarm, he says, “is only at the beginning. In Italy, public structures have lost 45 thousand operators in 10 years, of which 10 thousand doctors between hospitals and affiliated companies. And then there is the item retirements: 35,200 are expected by 2027. There will not be enough colleagues to replace them. The result is that in the four-year period ending in 2023, there could be a further deficit of tens of thousands of doctors, the result of the imbalance between retirements and the new trained specialists who are expected to choose to carry out their work in public health ”.
According to Anaao, the shortage “could be estimated at an additional 24 thousand units by 2023. Also according to a recent Anaao study, by 2025, of the approximately 105,000 medical specialists currently employed in public health, about half could retire: 52,500. An inexorable and unstoppable biblical exodus ”.
And there is also “a particularly aged professional population due to the continued block in turnover. According to data released by Eurostat, Italy has the oldest doctors in Europe with 54% of the total being over 55 years of age. A previous Anaao report had highlighted how the population of NHS employees over the age of 50 was even 68% of the total ”.
BASIC MEDICINE - The emergency does not only concern public structures, “but also basic medicine. At least 1.5 million Italians are without their own doctor, and this is a problem also present in Sardinia, as repeatedly reported by both citizens and local administrators, who are looking for an answer in the Region that is not within their competence. In the last two years, in fact, Sardinia has banned and formed rankings for general practitioners on all vacant sites, making up for the delay accumulated in the previous five years. But even in this case, if doctors are lacking, the Region does not have great possibilities. With the latest law approved, I wanted to provide an incentive measure for general practitioners and paediatricians of free choice who opt for a disadvantaged location, so as to try to guarantee all citizens who are in inland areas and small towns ".
In summary: “We need to increase the number of medical graduates. It is no longer time for justifications or postponements. The state must put in place all the necessary tools so that our universities can guarantee adequate training courses to satisfy the entire national need for professionalism, with serious and effective planning ".
We need "a great political mobilization, an awareness on the part of the national government that cannot simply download this emergency on the regional health systems, which risks becoming a devastating structural deficiency". "Extraordinary interventions are needed to deal with the immediate emergency, which only the State can have and authorize to guarantee all citizens a fair and efficient health system, from which the degree of civilization and progress of a country is measured".
(Unioneonline / D)
