He will now have to be held accountable in court.
Endless waiting times for patients… who now know why their doctors were so difficult to see. Not that they were overworked but rather that they were having a good time. And not just a few hours here and there: hours of relaxation spread over two months.
The case, reported by Le Bien Public and the local press, targets ten internal doctors. According to investigators, these young practitioners manipulated the appointment-making system to arrange lighter days. Between July and August 2023, they would have recorded several slots in the name of the same patient in the establishment’s internal software, artificially saturating schedules and blocking access to examinations for other patients. The patient had only requested one consultation.
The investigation revealed nearly 290 falsified appointments. These manipulations of waiting lists and examination appointments, concentrated in the morning, allowed them to ensure shorter days during the summer months. Having been informed, the hospital management transmitted all the elements to the courts. The ten doctors, still in training, are now being prosecuted for falsifying computer data and obstructing a public service. Their preliminary trial is scheduled for February 19, 2027 in Florence. It is in the Careggi University Hospital of this famous Italian city that the doctors practice. For the moment, the establishment has not made any comments.
This affair is all the more controversial because in Italy, waiting times are exploding in public hospitals: sometimes several months for a CT scan or an MRI. In this context, the discovery of this stratagem angered patients. In France, no comparable scandal has been reported. Cases of unjustified absences or false prescriptions have existed, but never of deliberate manipulation of appointment systems to steal free hours.
