Growing number of Italians giving up treatment: now one in ten, blame waiting lists and financial reasons

The flight from healthcare is worsening because of excessively long waiting lists or because Italians cannot afford treatment. In 2024, one in ten Italians (9.9 per cent) reported having given up visits or specialist examinations in the last 12 months, mainly because of long waiting lists and the difficulty of paying for healthcare services. This is what Istat writes in its Annual Report 2025, with data testifying to the difficulties in public health: the renunciation of vital services for prevention and treatment is on the rise both compared to 2023, when it was 7.5%, and to the pre-pandemic period when the figure was 6.3%, 'mainly due to the worsening of booking difficulties', Istat warns.

In 2024, around 6 million Italians, one in 10 (9.9%), forewent specialist visits or examinations, mainly because of long waiting lists (6.8%) and difficulties in paying for healthcare services (5.3%). The renunciation of healthcare services is on the rise, both in comparison to 2023 (7.5%) and to the pre-pandemic period (6.3% in 2019), mainly due to increased booking difficulties. And the figure that emerges clearly is the burden of queues to access services, which especially after Covid has become the number one enemy of patients, overtaking economic reasons. Renunciation of treatment mainly affects women and adults aged 45-54, and is also growing in the North and among the better educated, reducing traditional social and territorial advantages. Another side of the coin is the ever-increasing recourse to the private sector. Compared to 2023, reads the report's summary, recourse to the private sector - i.e. bearing the entire cost of the last service without insurance reimbursement - has affected a greater share of people, rising from 19.9 to 23.9 per cent of the population.

Although life expectancy at birth is increasing, the proportion of years lived in good health is decreasing, especially for women. In 2024, men can expect to live an average of 59.8 years in good health, in line with 2019. For women, on the other hand, the figure drops to 56.6 years, the lowest in the last decade. In 2022, the avoidable mortality rate is 17.7 deaths per 10,000 inhabitants, the lowest value in the European Union after Sweden. Italy is among the countries with the best performance in both components of avoidable mortality: preventable mortality, mainly linked to primary prevention and the promotion of healthy lifestyles, and treatable mortality, associated, on the other hand, with the health system's ability to diagnose and treat in a timely manner. The preventable mortality rate is 11.3 per 10,000 in 2022 and the treatable mortality rate is 6.3 per 10,000. However, in the EU context, Italy loses positions for the treatable component, showing a slowdown in the health system's ability to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment.

In Italy, higher preventable and treatable mortality rates are observed for people with lower levels of education. The preventable mortality rates of men and women with at most an elementary school degree (41.1 and 15.7 per 10,000 respectively) are more than twice as high as those with at least a university degree (16.8 for university graduates and 7.6 for women graduates). Similarly, for treatable mortality, the rate for the least educated men (15 deaths per 10,000) is 2.1 times higher than for the most educated (rate of 7.1), while for women this ratio is lower and equal to 1.8. In 2024, the mental health index averages 68.4 points. Psychological distress worsens with increasing age. The highest average value of the index is found among 14-24 year olds (70.4 points) and reaches its lowest (65.1) among people aged 75 and over. Gender inequalities in psychological distress are marked, especially between young and old. Among 14-24 year olds the gap between women and men is 6.1 points (67.2 vs. 73.3). Even among the over 75s, women's psychological distress is higher than men's (lower mental health index 62.7 versus 68.5).

Disabled conditions will affect 2.9 million people in Italy in 2023 (5 per cent of the population), including 1 million 690 thousand women. The highest share of persons with disabilities is found in the older age groups: 6.9 per cent in the 65-74 age group and 19.2 per cent among the elderly aged 75 and over. Among women a lower prevalence than among men is observed up to the age of 64, for the later age groups the share of women with disabilities exceeds that of men. Only 9.8 per cent of people with disabilities say they are well or very well, compared to 83.1 per cent of the rest of the population. Over the years, the share of people with disabilities declined (from 61% in 2010 to 57.3% in 2023). From 2010 to 2023, the proportion of people with disabilities with at least one chronic condition fluctuated around 88 per cent (33 per cent in the rest of the population).