Too many patients, too few doctors, and a lack of social services: Sardinia's hospitals are overwhelmed.

In hospital medical departments, there are too few doctors and too many patients. 80 percent are over seventy and have at least one or more medical conditions. There are never enough beds, and often even the corridors are occupied by stretchers and makeshift beds . Unfortunately, many hospitalizations are inappropriate, and Cagliari and Sassari are left to shoulder the burden of what can no longer be provided on the "periphery." Many discharges are also complicated, because there is no adequate network of intermediate facilities and social-care services outside.

The alarm is sounded regularly by FADOI (Federation of Italian Internship Managers' Associations), which in its survey once again highlights unsustainable pressure and organizational inappropriateness that urgently needs to be addressed.

"All the island's hospitals are understaffed," warns Carlo Usai, head of Internal Medicine at the AOU of Sassari and member of the FADOI national secretariat, "but there's a perverse mechanism that exacerbates the overcrowding at the hubs: some hospitals, even major ones, no longer perform a series of procedures, so all the patients end up at the 'center'."

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