Italy recruits foreign doctors to address severe healthcare staffing shortage
ROME, ITALY — Italy is looking to hire more foreign medical workers to fill labor force gaps within its public healthcare system.
Dire shortage of medical professionals
Estimates reveal a critical deficit of at least 20,000 physicians and 70,000 nurses in the public health system. This crisis stems from a law restricting the recruitment of medical staff to curb costs, which has resulted in stagnant healthcare spending for the past two decades.
Since 2005, 10% of doctors who have retired have not been replaced. The number of young specialists who have entered the field in the same period has not been enough to replace all retired doctors.
To address this critical staffing shortage, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government plans to relax the criteria for employing foreign doctors in the public sector.
Role of foreign medical staff in Italy
Data shows that 21,000 foreign doctors worked in the Italian healthcare system in 2019, a figure that increased to 28,000 in 2023. Eighty-seven percent of them are from non-Eurpean Union countries.
Additionally, 23,000 foreign nurses are employed in Italy, 9,456 of whom are from outside the EU.
The medical association Anaao Assomed believes it is imperative to make the public health service more attractive to healthcare professionals. Many doctors opt to work abroad or in the private sector due to low salaries, staff shortages, and heavy workloads.
“Every day, seven physicians leave the national health service,” said Pierino di Silverio, Anaao Assomed secretary general, in 2022.
In February, the Italian government allocated an additional $3.5 billion for specialist training contracts. It has also opened more positions for medical students.
However, challenges remain, such as addressing the discrepancy between job openings and qualified candidates, as well as ensuring adequate staffing in critical medical specialties
Offshore and virtual nurses
The United States also faces a healthcare staffing shortage. To address this dilemma, several institutions have turned to offshore and virtual staffing.
Some systems assign administrative and back-office tasks to offshore staff so that the medical staff can focus on patient-facing tasks.
Over the years, the role of virtual staff has evolved from administrative tasks to ambient patient monitoring.
Some hospitals are also equipped with AI-laced sensors and cameras that identify the patient’s vital signs through facial recognition. These tools have helped alleviate the daily workloads of floor nurses and physicians.
