Last October, 44 people were admitted to the 2024-2027 course; all those who responded to the call for 60 scholarships for specialization in general medicine in Sardinia. Today, while the course has not yet begun, twelve have already disappeared . The aspiring first-year general practitioners are therefore just 32, half of those who could have received the scholarship.

"But it is not certain that the number will remain the same", Nicola Addis, president of the Order of Sassari, shrugs his shoulders.

On the island where there is a shortage of over 450 family doctors, the problem is not only the mass of retirements that have left tens of thousands of patients without basic care, but also the small number of aspiring professionals, young troops in their infancy while within the next two years another 330 doctors will retire.

A disaster for local medicine, in a land where over a quarter of the population is over 65, while only 10.6% is in the 0-14 age group. Closed clinics and denied assistance no longer only in small inland towns: now even clinics in cities like Cagliari and Sassari are starting to remain uncovered.

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