Naples – "The data released by the GIMBE Foundation on public healthcare funding are a wake-up call, especially for Campania. Our region has made significant efforts in recent years to make up ground on essential levels of care. Now this progress must be consolidated, not jeopardized by insufficient resources." This is according to Bruno Zuccarelli, president of the Order of Surgeons and Dentists of Naples and its province, commenting on the GIMBE Foundation's analysis of Italian public healthcare spending.
In 2025, Italian public healthcare spending was capped at 6,2% of GDP, compared to the OECD and European average of 7,1%. In terms of per capita spending, Italy's gap with the European average exceeds €36 billion overall. This gap, according to GIMBE, places growing pressure on the Regions: ensuring essential health care benefits (LEAs) while simultaneously maintaining budget balance.
h3Campania is among the compliant regions, but the process isn't closed.
"For Campania," Zuccarelli emphasizes, "this issue takes on particular significance. The latest available data on essential environmental standards (LEA) have certified our region's return to compliance, along with Puglia and Sardinia, the only regions in Southern Italy to meet the required standards. This is an achievement that deserves recognition, but it shouldn't lead us to believe that all the problems have been solved."
According to the Order's president, the risk is that a structural shortage of resources will ultimately weigh heavily on those regions that are even more in need of closing gaps accumulated over the years. "The Campania healthcare system must continue to improve accessibility to care, waiting times, community care, and the ability to meet the needs of an increasingly complex population. All of this requires organization and management skills, but it also inevitably requires adequate resources and personnel."
Staff under pressure: "We can't ask operators to make sacrifices."
Zuccarelli specifically addresses the situation of healthcare professionals. "We cannot defend the National Health Service by continuing to ask doctors, nurses, and other workers to make up for structural shortfalls with their own sacrifices. Staff shortages, increasingly demanding shifts, and the difficulty in making public sector employment attractive are problems that risk directly impacting the quality and timeliness of care."
Budget Law and Budget Law: "Healthcare spending isn't just an item to be contained."
For Zuccarelli, therefore, the discussion on the next budget law must begin with the understanding that healthcare spending cannot be considered merely an item to be contained. "Campania has demonstrated that recovery is possible.
Precisely for this reason, it would be a mistake to undermine the efforts made. Investments are needed that allow the Regions to consolidate the results achieved and, above all, to reduce the territorial inequalities that still mean the right to healthcare is not exercised equally throughout the country. Investing in public healthcare—concludes Zuccarelli—means investing in professionals, facilities, prevention, and community-based care. But above all, it means preventing the quality of care from becoming dependent on where a person is born or lives.
