ERs risk closing across Italy

(ANSA) - Rome, November 15 - ERs across Italy risk closing due to a lack of doctors, the president of the Italian society of emergency medicine (SIMEU) said Friday.
    Accident and emergency departments "from north to south, are at risk of closure because the missing doctors are now over 2,000 and they can't cover the shifts any more," said Francesco Rocco Pugliese.
    Pugliese signed a document along with 50 ER chiefs containing an "urgent proposal for the next five years" on hirings.
    It proposes hirings non-specialist doctors, also newly graduated ones, to be taken on at the same time as supernumeraries in the schools of specialisation in urgent medicine.
    "Time has run out," it says.
    ERs around Italy have been struggling to cope for years.