On-Call Medical Service
The on-call medical service (Guardia Medica) is a service which offers medical assistance when your doctor is unavailable. The on-call medical service is not on duty when surgeries are open; they operate at night and during holidays. If you need medical assistance during surgery opening hours, you will need to contact the surgery as usual. The on-call service is open:
from 8pm until 8am the following day, every working day,
from 10am on Saturdays until 8 am on Mondays,
from 10am on the day before a holiday until 8am on the day after the holiday.
Doctors who work in the on-call medical service are called 'medici di guardia' and offer only certain services:
prescription of medicines for urgent complaints, but not for medication required for a period longer than three days;
issue of sickness certificates to patients who can prove, or who claim, that they would usually have to work when the on-call medical service is available;
referral to hospital, in urgent cases.
If you are treated by a doctor from the on-call medical service, you will be given a record for your GP which describes the treatment you received.
In case of a patient's death, a doctor from the on-call medical service can determine the absence of vital signs; however, only a GP or a forensic doctor is able to issue a death certificate.
For the details of your local on-call medical service you can ask at your Local Health Authority, at your doctor's surgery, or at a local pharmacy.
If you require medical attention in an emergency, and you cannot wait for the on-call medical service nor attend the Accident & Emergency department of your nearest hospital, you should call 118. 118 is the telephone number of the mobile care unit 'Pronto Intervento', a medical service available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Your call will be answered by a doctor who, depending on the seriousness of your case, will organise an emergency home visit from your local on-call medical service or send an ambulance to take you to hospital.
