Overview

• In 2024, 6.8 percent of Italians—about 4 million people—skipped essential visits or tests because public waiting times exceeded safe limits, a 51 percent jump from 2023.
• Three of the six implementing decrees for the June 2024 waiting-list reform remain unpublished, including the expired substitute-powers decree and two without fixed deadlines.
• The delayed launch of a national appointment-management platform and unresolved tensions between Rome and regional authorities have paralyzed the law’s roll-out.
• Fondazione Gimbe warns that chronic personnel shortages, organizational shortcomings and lagging digital systems underlie the waiting-list crisis.
• Opposition M5S is organizing a Palermo rally with leader Giuseppe Conte to pressure the government for full enforcement of the reform.