10,000 doctors fewer in Italy in 10 yrs - Schillaci

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 15 - Some 10,000 doctors left Italy for abroad between 2005 and 2015, Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said Wednesday, saying it was time to stop the medical brain drain.
    "In ten years from 2005 to 2015 more than 10,000 doctors left Italy to work abroad, an exodus of human capital that we can no longer afford," he said at the inauguration of the Academic Year of the Catholic University of Rome.
    "With this in mind, it seems urgent to put young people at the centre of development policies by offering them the chance to realise their aspirations, dispelling the idea that ours is not a nation for young people." Schillaci said the government aimed to expand places at medical schools.
    "Only two or three years ago, between 8,000 and 10,000 students per year were admitted to the Faculty of Medicine. "Yet ten years ago, the Conference of Deans of the Faculty of Medicine was already insistently calling for the number of students admitted to it to be increased to 12,000." For this reason, the minister said, "the numbers made public with the decree of 10 February regarding access to the Faculty of Medicine are to be considered provisional and I believe they will be expanded". (ANSA).