Family doctors: Lodi, Pistoia and Rovigo the cities with the fewest doctors
They are lacking in Lombardy and Veneto and in the most populated central-northern provinces: records in PistoiaRovigo and Lodi. The decree introducing dependency to cover 'holes' risks remaining in the drawers
by Marzio Bartoloni and Michela Finizio
For those who live in a central-northern province, especially the more populous ones, including large cities such as Milan, having a family doctor is increasingly fortunate.
Every year, there are fewer and fewer of them - some 40,000 remain active - because between retirements, vacancies in inconvenient locations and calls for tenders that go half-deserted, the family doctor is becoming an endangered species.
And so the doctors who still open their surgeries are forced to work overtime, i.e. to have well over a thousand patients - which would be the optimal threshold - exceeding even the maximum of 1,500 patients, a symbolic threshold above which guaranteeing prescriptions and treatment is a challenge.
The problem is well known: the profession is becoming less and less attractive for those who dream of wearing the white coat and now risks ending up in a dead end if the latest attempt by Health Minister Schillaci and the regions to initiate a gradual reform also fails.
The idea being studied is to introduce a dual channel: alongside the main channel of the current convention (doctors remain freelancers who sign an 'agreement' with the SSN), the possibility of introducing a residual channel is being considered, whereby doctors would be hired as employees, to work in the territories where there are fewer of them and within the more than one thousand new Community Hospitals that are to open by the end of June.
