Juliette Gagliardi
Junior Researcher
Hospitals in Italy - statistics & facts
Italy's healthcare system (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale) provides universal coverage free of charge, or following a co-payment calculated by the patient’s income, for all Italian citizens, as well as foreign citizens living in the country with a regular permit. When it comes to managing hospitals, public funds are allocated by regional health units to public hospitals and private hospitals accredited with the national healthcare service. In Italy, most hospitals are public and are either managed directly by local health units or operate as semi-independent public enterprises. In recent years, the number of hospitals has decreased, which, as a consequence, has led to a decrease in the number of hospital beds.
Hospitalization rate and discharges
Hospitalization rates vary significantly across Italy, partly because some citizens choose to travel within the country to access what they deem to be the best healthcare service and partly because of the demographic distribution of the population. For example, Liguria, the region with the highest percentage of elderly, as well as the region with the highest average age, has the highest hospitalization rate. The number of discharges from hospitals has decreased by nearly one-third in recent years. Similarly, the annual number of days spent in hospitals has dropped year-on-year. One of the reasons might be that most Italians, as of 2021, considered themselves to be in good health. Conversely, however, almost 24 percent of Italian citizens reported difficulties in accessing healthcare services.Hospital employees
In 2020, the number of hospital employees in Italy amounted to approximately 655 thousand, a figure that has been fluctuating in recent years. Most individuals employed in hospitals are nurses and midwives, with over 274 thousand. Physicians represent roughly 20 percent of total hospital employees, and the most widespread fields of specialization among them are anesthesiology and resuscitation, followed by internal medicine, emergency medicine and surgery. Medical staff in Italy were heavily affected during the COVID-19 pandemic and cases of coronavirus among them reached up to 138 thousand cases in July 2021.
