The waiting lists in Italian hospitals are still one of the most critical knots of the National Health Service. Health Minister Orazio Schillaci claimed progress thanks to the monitoring started in 2024 and has promised new measures to reduce the times, involving the regions and family doctors. But citizens continue to clash with long expectations and territorial differences.
The data is that some performances are now guaranteed faster, but at the price of an extraordinary organization: evening visits and on weekends, especially in regions such as Piedmont who have experienced this model now taken for example by others. A result that shortens the times, but raises doubts about sustainability and real impact. A systemic emergency is not treated with a patch.
Improved waiting lists: the government monitoring data
“We would like to make access to the national health service easier and reduce too many regional inequalities,” said Minister Schillaci to Forum, on Canale 5. How? The government’s strategy has focused so far on monitoring. Thanks to a law approved in 2023, the Ministry of Health is now able to detect waiting times at the level of single ASL and hospital. The first report, from January to June, reports an improvement in performance in over a thousand Italian hospitals.
To continue on this good road, Schillaci also indicated territorial medicine among the priorities, to be relaunched with the homes and hospitals of community funded by the PNRR. In addition, there is the node of the role of family doctors, who will have to operate part of their hours in the new structures. To make the path more attractive, the minister confirmed the intention to transform the formation of general practitioners into a university specialization, as is the case for other clinical disciplines.
What happens in hospitals: the Piedmont model
If national data show a shortening of the lists, the merit seems to be above all of local initiatives. For example in Piedmont, President Alberto Cirio launched a campaign of visits in the evening and on the weekend. Only in the province of Cuneo, from February to today, have over 15 thousand extra performance. Throughout the region, at 31 August, 100 thousand visits and exams were exceeded, four months in advance of the annual objective.
The interventions concerned the most requested services:
- Tac;
- magnetic resonances;
- ultrasounds;
- first cardiological visits;
- Orthopedic visits.
The measure was supported with a regional funding of 20 million euros in the first phase and of additional 10 million in the second, thus also covering the summer months for a total of 12 million euros. A model that has made it possible to cut the times, but which therefore depends on extraordinary resources and the availability of staff to make additional shifts.
A temporary solution: doubts
In fact, the main question remains behind the numbers: the lack of health personnel. According to the data reported by Fnomceo, in Italy over 10 thousand doctors are missing, with the emergency room covered only at 62% of the planned staff. Furthermore, many family doctors will retire in the coming years and more than 35 thousand releases are estimated by 2027.
The consequence is a system under pressure, if not directly to collapse, where the lists are reduced only thanks to extraordinary campaigns or to the extension of the times, but without a real structural enhancement. The “buffer” solutions risk making the profession less attractive, already marked by high workloads and unhappy salaries.
