In Sardinia, there are nearly 500 general practitioners missing—495 to be precise . This figure emerges from the determination of the regional health department, which has published the list of vacant positions on the Buras (Italian General Public Health Office) so that doctors can apply to fill them.

The most critical situation is in the Cagliari Local Health Authority, the largest area, with 150 vacant positions, including 69 in Cagliari, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Selargius, and Settimo, 17 in Quartu, and 11 in Assemini, Decimomannu, Emlas, San Sperate, and Uta.

In the Sassari Local Health Authority, 101 doctors are missing , of which 36 are in the city, 14 between Porto Torres and Stintino, and 11 between Alghero and Olmedo.

In the city of Nuoro there are 11 vacant positions, in the entire territory of the ASL 66. In the Oristano area, however, there is a shortage of 64 general practitioners: 15 between Oristano, Palmas Arborea, Santa Gusta and 13 between Arborea, Marrubiu, San Nicolò d'Arcidano, Terralba, Uras.

We then move to Gallura, where 35 positions are vacant : six between Budoni, Loiri Porto San Paolo, Padru, and San Teodoro. In the Ogliastra Local Health Authority, there are 11 , four between Girasole and Tortolì. In the Medio Campidano Local Health Authority, 36 general practitioners are missing , with major shortages in Villacidro, where seven doctors are being sought. Finally, in Sulcis, there are 31 positions vacant , nine between Carbonia and Portoscuso and eight between Gonnesa and Iglesias.

Emergency room out of order

The shortage of primary care is impacting emergency rooms, where the lack of screening leads to a very high number of admissions, unmanageable for staff. Just today, the Health Commission, chaired by Carla Fundoni, held a hearing with chief physicians and general managers to discuss Sardinian emergency rooms, which are increasingly overflowing. Several testimonies were presented, outlining a dramatic situation: a system that relies on paid doctors, some of whose contracts have already expired, others expiring on June 30th.

So much so that FdI, at the end of the hearing, raised the alarm about the risk of closure for several health facilities: "An imminent danger, dramatically confirmed today during the hearings, which once again highlighted the fragility of the regional emergency system."

Emergency-urgency, 73 doctors are missing

In another resolution, the department also published the number of vacant positions for the local health emergency in the Buras (Italian National Health Service). There are 73 vacant positions, detailed below: six in Tempio, Sorgono, and Bosa; five in Porto Torres, Ozieri, and Ghilarza; four in Cagliari (two at the SS. Trinità and two at the Marino Hospital); three in Alghero, Sarroch, Siniscola, Senorbì, San Gavino, Sirai Hospital in Carbonia, and Oristano; two each in Olbia, Nuoro, Lanusei, Iglesias, Muravera, and Ales; and one each in Sassari, Quartu, and Isili.

«Too many accesses»

Some data provided today to the commission by physicians and managers. At the Cagliari Local Health Authority (ASL), 30,000 admissions are recorded annually in the city, 8,000 in Muravera, and 4,000 in Isili. "Most are white and green codes due to the lack of primary care and community medicine," explained Director General Aldo Atzori.

The Brotzu emergency room is the busiest, with 47,200 adult admissions per year and 18,000 pediatric admissions, arriving from all over Sardinia. "Twenty-six percent of these admissions result in hospitalizations, generating overbooking in the other internal medicine and emergency surgery departments as well."

Vincenzo Serra, head of the Cagliari University Hospital, reports 32,000 visits to the general and gynecological emergency rooms: "70 percent are white or green codes, demonstrating the shortcomings of general medicine and the emergency medical service."

In Carbonia, in 2025, there were 18,500 emergency room visits, 11,560 in Iglesias.

In Lanusei, 18,000 admissions were recorded with 53,000 inhabitants in the reference area: «Often, for reasons we don't know, 118 doesn't allow us to use the air ambulance and so we are forced to take patients with aortic dissections to Cagliari or Sassari by ambulance», explained the head physician Marinella Cocco.

In total, Sardinian emergency rooms recorded 470,000 visits in 2025, 133,000 of which were through 118 (emergency medical service). More than two out of three citizens therefore go to the emergency room by their own means, explained Areus manager Angelo Serusi. "Often," he added, also in response to accusations from some medical directors that 118 also brings patients to the emergency room who shouldn't be there, "the green codes we report are the result of more serious codes that 118 doctors stabilized and sent to the hospital as a precaution. However, we can improve and reduce visits, including by increasing the fleet of medically equipped patients."

But the big problem, Serusi said, confirming what was reported by various doctors and managers who spoke in the debate, is the lack of a local medicine that can act as a filter.

(Unioneonline/L)

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