The number of patients increases According to the data, there are fewer and fewer young people who are trained to take up this profession and fill the gaps left by those who retire. There are just 666 general practitioners who have graduated for less than 6 years in our country. There are only around 2,000 of those who have been in service from 13 to 20 years, therefore professionals around the age of 45. The leap is instead in the category of graduates for over 27 years where there are around 30,000 family doctors. Alarming data, considering the insufficient generational turnover. The consequence is that each doctor has an ever-increasing number of patients, and this makes assistance more difficult. There is talk of an average of 1,237 people per doctor but there are many who have broken through the maximum ceiling, which on paper would be 1,500, or 42%. To stop this problem, many Regions have given the green light to increase the number of patients, up to 1,800 and even beyond.
Italians without general practitioner Looking at the balance of those retiring and those leaving specialization schools in the next two years, 25% of the Italian population will find themselves without basic territorial assistance. An optimistic estimate, that of Agenas, which considers only retirements as a cause of interruption of work and not other factors. In 2025, just over 10,000 young doctors will have joined, but 13,780 will have left the profession. Approximately 3,600 uncovered places, which are equivalent to just under 4.5 million Italians who will be left without a doctor or will have to go and “weigh” the remaining ones, who will see the number of patients increase. At the expense of quality of care.
The possible solutions 15.63 billion from the PNRR fund for health have been allocated. The government wants to prioritize proximity networks and innovation, creating so-called community houses. With the Milleproroghe decree, the retirement age of family doctors has been raised from 70 to 72 years. This is a voluntary extension which will, however, lead to more and more elderly doctors. Access to the profession is also far from smooth. In the last three years the number of scholarships has increased gradually, almost tripling, but the regions travel with a delay of more than a year in the publication of the notices. However, the numbers are insufficient compared to the exponential increase in retirements. Furthermore, around 20% of the doctors who won the tender, abandon the course in the first two years to enter other more attractive specialties with scholarships paid even twice as much.