Healthcare managers: the mock text preventing them from staying on the ward until the age of 72

Last 4 February I reported on the discouraging events of the issue of the retention in service of healthcare executives beyond the age of 70. In a nutshell, what had happened was that in the Decreto Milleproroghe 2026 dozens of health-related regulations were re-proposed, but not the ones we are dealing with. The reasons for this could have been a simple oversight, although it was more plausible that it had been deliberately eliminated because in recent years many questions had arisen - especially from the Inps and the Court of Auditors - regarding the problem of the cumulability of pension and self-employment income. Subsequent events have instead confirmed that the non-extension was indeed an oversight, because during the conversion of Law Decree 200/2025, in Article 5 - relating to healthcare - Law 26/2026 added a paragraph 10-ter that re-proposed retention and readmission, although the conditions and limits were changed. Having said this, the field application of the legislative rule in force since 1.3.2026 is proving to be extremely complex and has taken on the contours of a hoax for those directly concerned and a clumsy legal mishap.

This law, as formulated, does not allow any doctor to remain mathematically in service until the age of 72, but at most until 70 years and 10 months. Why this anomaly? Simply because the law sets 31.12.2026 as the deadline. Therefore, only those who turn 70 years of age after 1 March 2026 can take advantage of the retention, in any case remaining in service no later than 31 December 2026; therefore, the maximum age that can be reached is 70 years and 10 months and not 72. It is quite evident that before March 2026 there was no possibility for any doctor to apply because, as mentioned, there is a two-month gap in the continuity of the rule.

The ultimate paradox would be that of a doctor who turns 70 next November, submits the application, the company immediately adopts the resolution, and the doctor is then retained in service... for a month.

In the original paragraph 164-bis, as amended by Law 26/2026, the fateful date '31 December 2026' is found twice: with the words 'until' in the second sentence and at the end of the sentence, but here it is preceded by the constraint 'in any case not later than the aforementioned date of 31 December 2026'. The first is clearly the final deadline by which the health agencies can accept applications, while the second is unequivocally the maximum date of actual presence in service. If the inescapable date had only been indicated in the parenthesis, the rule would essentially be perfect, because a resolution adopted in December 2026 would allow actual retention until the seventy-second year. But unfortunately the time deadline is repeated afterwards, with another purpose, and this constitutes the black hole in which the legislative provision is lost.

The consequence is that the rule is effectively useless, as well as unnecessarily convoluted. Moreover, the way it is written, it is unreasonable in light of the very motivation that led the government to extend it, i.e. "to cope with the serious shortage of personnel", a circumstance that will certainly not change in the coming months. I would even go so far as to glimpse profiles of unconstitutionality in relation to Articles 32 and 97 of the Constitution, because it is hard to see how a doctor retained on duty for just one month can contribute to the 'protection of health' and the 'good performance' of the health authority.