Pavia – In the province 68 general practitioners are still missing. A dramatic shortage, especially if you consider that three months ago there were 74 professionals missing and 6 tasks were assigned. Taking an average of 1,500 patients for each white coat, there are 102 thousand people in Pavia who do not have a general practitioner. And this applies to those who live in some small towns in the province as well as to those who live in the capital. Lombardy region has allocated 50 million to encourage the hiring of general practitioners and only 6 in the Pavia area have responded in the face of a shortage of 1,435 professionals in the whole of Lombardy.
To try to give an answer, we focus on home nurses and volunteers. Meanwhile, the University of Pavia is committed to training the new generation of general practitioners, while “Pavia nel cuore” involves third-year medical students, transforming them into instructors for BLSD courses and organizes courses to spread basic knowledge about cardiac arrest and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The situation, however, is destined to get worse. In two years, the people of Pavia without a GP risk numbering 170 thousand, due to retirements.
«The Region lets us know that in 2024 there will be 12 – said Gian Mario Fragomeli, regional councilor of the Democratic Party, and the provincial secretary Simone Marchesi – in 2025 they will rise to 28 and in 2026 they will become a total of 47. And even taking into account that the number indicated for each year is cumulative of previous years, if there are no adequate allocations in the meantime, in just two years in our province another 70 thousand people they will be without a doctor”. There are many reasons for this shortage: being a general practitioner for young people is no longer very attractive, especially in small towns in the province, because there are no incentives for those who choose to work in isolated areas. Furthermore, the workload is considered excessive. According to Fragomeli and Marchesi, however, “the Region is not planning replacements and is not inviting interns. If in the three-year period 2022-2025 the total number of trainees was 41, of which 23 in Pavia, and of the trainees with a deficient area 24, of which 14 in Pavia, in the three-year period 2023-2026 the total trainees are 16, of which 8 in Pavia, and with zero deficient scope, none”.
