Italian health system must hire over 50,000 doctors in next ten years

Rome, Nov 12 (Prensa Latina) To avoid collapse, the Italian health system must hire about 55,000 doctors and 44,000 nurses in the next ten years, as well as 20,000 other health and rehabilitation workers, a study stated on Tuesday.

November 12, 2024
13:56

An analysis by specialists of the Bank of Italy shows that these figures are linked to the expected retirement by 2032 of almost 27,000 doctors, 24,000 nurses, and the same number of other health workers, so the national health service must strengthen.

The situation is complicated by the aging of specialists. Twenty-six percent of Italian doctors aged over 60 by late 2022, a percentage that rises to 34 percentage points in the country’s southern region.

This phenomenon is particularly serious for general practitioners and pediatricians, where professionals 60 years and older reach 40 percent nationally and 45 percentage points in the southern regions.

Francesco Maria Chelli, President of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), recently pointed out, in a parliamentary hearing, that the aging of the workforce is a critical issue for the health sector “given the future increase in demand for care due to demographic dynamics.”

ef/iff/ft/ort