Doctors stage one-day strike

(ANSA) - Rome, December 12 - Italian national health system doctors were stating a one-day strike on Tuesday.
    Some 40,000 surgical operations have been cancelled as well as hundreds of thousands of specialist examinations and diagnostic tests, while public veterinary services have also been hit, the ANAAO Assomed union said. The doctors' unions called the strike in protest at the 2018 budget bill currently being debated in parliament and the stall in talks on renewing their members' collective contracts.
    Several unions representing national health system doctors said in a joint statement on Tuesday that the number of physicians taking part in the strike was "above all predictions" with peaks of 80% in some places. The statement said doctors were taking place in over 50 different protests on Tuesday, stressing that emergency services were guaranteed.