Istat, in 2024 six million people gave up specialist visits and medical examinations

Rome, Nov. 13 (LaPresse) – In 2024, the percentage of people who forego specialist visits (excluding dental visits) or medical examinations will rise to 9.9% (5.8 million citizens), up from 7.6% in 2023 and 8.1% before the pandemic. These are the figures published by Istat in the 2024 BES Report ‘Equitable and Sustainable Well-being in Italy’. The main causes are long waiting lists (6.8%) and economic reasons (5.3%). Women (11.4%) and adults aged 45-54 (13.4%) are most affected, while regional differences are decreasing. Gaps in education persist, with greater difficulties among less educated elderly people (11.9%) than among graduates (9.2%). In 2023, hospital beds in high-care wards will fall to 2.9 per 10,000 inhabitants (from 3.2 in 2022), with more marked decreases in the North, especially in the Autonomous Province of Trento, Veneto, and Lombardy. This will lead to a reduction in regional differences and the North-South divide, with regions above and below the average distributed throughout the country. Hospital admissions outside the region will increase: there will be 477,000 in 2023 (+27,000 compared to 2022), 8.6% of the total. The growth mainly concerns highly complex hospitalizations. The phenomenon is more pronounced in the South, with 11.3% of hospitalizations outside the region (half of which in hospitals in the North), while the North remains the most attractive. The geographical distribution of outbound mobility has remained stable over the last twenty years, with high percentages in many regions of the South, Valle d’Aosta/Vallée d’Aoste, Liguria, the Autonomous Province of Trento, Marche, and Umbria.