Doctors, in 2025 resignations increased by 150%. Retirements surpassed

In 2025, voluntary resignations of Italian doctors working in hospitals (3,767) exceeded retirements (2,876). The overtaking marks a watershed: in a single year, resignations soared by 150% compared to the 1,503 in 2024, reaching 3.5% of the total number of doctors in public healthcare, a threshold never recorded even in the most critical months of the pandemic. This emerges from a survey by the union Anaao Assomed. In as many as 12 out of 20 regions, during 2025, the doctors who chose to leave the National Health Service before retirement were more numerous than those who reached the age limit for retirement. "This is not a matter of normal professional mobility but a veritable exodus, driven by grueling shifts, salaries not aligned with Europe, working conditions on the verge of burnout, unsustainable bureaucratic burdens, and assaults in the wards." Pierino Di Silverio, national secretary of Anaao Assomed, comments thus on the results of the survey conducted by the study center of the hospital doctors' union, which shows a 150% surge in resignations in 2025. "To stop the landslide," Anaao Assomed asks the Government, Parliament, and the Regions to "move from words to deeds" with an extraordinary 10-point plan. Starting with making the Calabria Decree structural, transforming specialist training into a training-work contract for young doctors. Then, definitively overcoming the spending cap for personnel, which suffocates hiring. Among the requests: guaranteeing European-level pay through the tax exemption of supplementary salary; reforming professional liability to curb defensive medicine; economic and career incentives for disadvantaged locations and the Mezzogiorno. Then space for welfare, protecting rest periods and parenthood, but also safety and quality of life. Finally, Anaao asks for a permanent national observatory on resignations, to monitor the motivations and destinations of professionals. "2025 hands us an alarm signal that no one can afford to ignore," Di Silverio concludes. "2026 will tell us whether it was a bump in the road or the beginning of a landslide. We have shown that, when we invest in young people, the system responds. Now we need the courage to invest in those who stay." Most critical situations in 4 regions Particularly marked situations in Lazio, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and Sardinia, where the number of resigning white coats exceeds that of retirees by 2.4 to 3.3 times. And those leaving are not doctors at the end of their careers, but professionals in the full maturity of their clinical practice, with an average age of around 48. This emerges from the survey by the Study Center of the Anaao Assomed union, based on Onaosi data, the State's Annual Account, and the MEF. There remains the fracture of a two-speed country, confirming the need for targeted interventions. Over the last decade, the Center-North recorded a positive balance of 4,029 doctors (+5.9%), while the Mezzogiorno continued to empty out, losing 1,166 units (-3.1%). Paying the highest price in terms of staff reduction are Basilicata (-24.6%), Molise (-17.2%), Valle d'Aosta (-14.2%), and Calabria (-12.6%). Despite the exodus from the wards, the long-awaited generational turnover has begun. Between 2015 and 2024, the average age of hospital doctors decreased significantly: 2 years and 7 months less for male colleagues and 2 years and 4 months for women. A contribution to this rejuvenation came from the so-called Calabria decree, which between 2019 and 2025 allowed the entry into the system of nearly 10,000 young doctors, covering up to 43% of fixed-term hires. "However, with a generational turnover successfully underway - explains Pierino Di Silverio, secretary of Anaao Assomed - today we risk nullifying everything. In 2025, for every 100 doctors hired on a permanent contract, as many as 43 resigned and 77 left the public system, due to retirements and other causes." Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA