Health, Rome doctors: “Lack of personnel and insecurity, 1,500 leave every year”

“Chronic staff shortages, insecurity, resorting to defensive medicine to avoid disputes with patients. These are the main problems that plague Italian doctors, so much so that they want to abandon the National Health Service. In Rome alone, where about 10% of all Italian doctors work, 1,500 people throw in the towel every year. Which means that in Italy every 12 months there are 15,000 doctors who apply to work abroad for the same reasons. Among the favorite destinations are Great Britain, the United States and Israel”. This is what the president of the Order of Physicians of Rome, Antonio Magi, says, who with Adnkronos Salute takes stock of the state of health of the NHS.

Our doctors are working worse and worse, “they find themselves in a very difficult situation in this period. Clearly a lot is due to the chronic lack of staff, structure, safety in the workplace – explains Magi – and I would also say little serenity for the climate in which they have to work between violence, daily pressure and complaints. So they operate in unfavorable conditions and this unfortunately has repercussions on patients. For this reason we try to make everyone understand that the doctor is in the workplace, in the emergency room, in the wards, in the laboratories, only to treat patients”.

The indicator of this malaise “is the choice to abandon the NHS to go abroad, for economic reasons and career opportunities”. The Order of Rome, with 48 thousand doctors, “is the largest in Europe – Magi underlines – Every year we record a fact: about 1,500 young and older doctors ask to go and work abroad. The majority of young people choose countries such as the United States, Great Britain and Israel. Their older colleagues, who are close to retirement, instead, opt for Arab countries. For young doctors, another reason that pushes them to leave Italy is that in these countries there is no criminal offence for medical acts”.