Who is in favor (and who is against) of doctors’ retirement at 72?
To solve the shortage of doctors, the government has proposed an amendment to the Milleproproghe Decree, which provides for the possibility of raising the retirement age from 70 to 72, but not everyone likes the idea. Facts, comments and controversies
We no longer know where to go and find doctors and the government's latest idea is to give healthcare professionals the possibility, on a voluntary basis, to remain in service up to the age of 72, thus raising their retirement age.
The proposal, contained in an amendment by the majority to the Milleproproghe Decree, is being discussed in the Senate, but outside it is already igniting the spirits of hospitals, affiliated workers and trade unions.
Here's what's happening.
RAISE THE RETIREMENT AGE OF DOCTORS FROM 70 TO 72
Between the hiring ceiling and the escape of doctors from the National Health System (NHS), the shortage of personnel is a rebus that has no solution. So why not keep the ones that are already there until 72 instead of 70?
This is the proposal feared by the majority who would like to insert it with an amendment in the Milleproproghe Decree.
In reality, observes Repubblica , those who remain on duty until the end are “above all university students, if we are talking about employees of the health system. Hospitallers stop earlier, at age 67, and hardly exercise the option to stay another three years. The same possibility is available to affiliates (ie family doctors or on-call doctors, 118 and paediatricians) who don't want to stop at 68”.
WHO IS AGAINST
"An indecent proposal, a coup in an inappropriate legislative seat, a gift to powerful university lobbies, under the pretext of the serious shortage of doctors". This is how the amendment is defined in a note from the inter-union of the medical, health, veterinary management composed of the acronyms Anaao Assomed, Cimo-Fesmed (Anpo-Ascoti, Cimo, Cimop, Fesmed), Aaroi-Emac, Fassid (Aipac, Aupi, Simet, Sinafo, Snr), FP Cgil doctors and NHS managers, Federation of Veterinary and Doctors (Fvm), Cisl doctors.
The note then recalls that this is a hypothesis already rejected in the 2023 budget law.
BECAUSE IT WOULD BE A GIFT
“After the OECD 2022 report places Italy in first place in Europe for the average age of employed doctors, with 56% of the category over 55, it is unacceptable that the only response to the lack of human resources is a gimmick”, protest the trade unions.
"A proposal of this kind – continues the note – not only does not reduce the use of cooperatives for night and public holiday work, involving personnel who notoriously do not work at night and on Sunday, but also freezes careers and hiring in hospitals, with a substantial damage to women and young people, at a time when the number of specialist training contracts is registering a considerable increase”.
“The public health crisis – they add – cannot be resolved with the use of over-70 doctors or the reinstatement of no-vaxes, who, as weapons of mass distraction, are the indicator of the will not to address the problem. Nor with the piecework of coin-operating doctors, whether Italian or foreign, which undermines the safety of treatments by increasing the clinical risk and exposure (including insurance) of doctors, healthcare and veterinary managers and at the same time undermines the safety of accounts by allowing an extra-contractual use of resources".
THE COUNTERPROPOSAL
According to the acronyms, the NHS does not need a make-up operation but structural interventions, "first of all the abolition of the expenditure ceiling on personnel, which is the mother of all battles, to allow the immediate hiring of young doctors, including trainees, ready to enter the NHS but, in fact, maliciously blocked by those who have an interest in replacing them with pensioners".
WHO IS FOR
However, the Italian Federation of general practitioners (Fimmg), whose secretary Silvestro Scotti said: "It seems paradoxical, but this possibility could be favorable for young people," does not close the door to the government's hypothesis.
In fact, according to Scotti, this could "gain 2-3 years" because, in the case of contracted doctors, the average age is even higher (half are over 60) and in the next 8 years family doctors who 37,000 will retire, and there aren't enough young people to replace them.
Even the Enpam, the social security institution for doctors, argues that this measure aimed at the affiliates "would make it possible to give greater solidity to the social security system of the category without taking away jobs from young people".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/innalzamento-eta-pensionabile-medici-72-anni/ on Fri, 27 Jan 2023 11:27:28 +0000.