ROME - - The Venetian city has just launched a campaign to entice doctors as its desperate search for medics continues.

 In the centre of a colourful design that echoes the shapes of Venice's palaces and bridges is a smiling doctor with a stethoscope around his neck, pointing towards St Mark's bell tower. “Doctor, doctor, the most beautiful city in the world is waiting for you” is the campaign’s playful slogan.

 It continues: “Being a family doctor in the most beautiful city in the world? To GPs who, from other regions or other countries, wish to apply to work in Venice, the Azienda sanitaria Ulss3 Serenissima offers all possible support."

 Venice, like many other cities in Italy, is frantically searching for healthcare workers. The offer also includes free parking, a rare commodity in the city. 

 "The company, in fact, can grant provisional appointments of GPs to cover the areas in need in central Venice and its islands. These same appointments may subsequently become permanent appointments according to the regulations in place” reads the campaign that will appear on social media.

 The incentives continue: "In order to meet the professional interested in the role," promises Ulss3, "the company, together with the municipal administration, can: provide a surgery at a subsidised rate; accompany the professional in the search for accommodation and make free parking available at the city gates.”

 The appeal was also projected on the façade of the Civil Hospital of Venice. “Today more than ever,” a video states, “Venice needs those who care for it, it needs those who choose to exercise their noble role in the homes and among the people of this fragile and spectacular city.”

 The video adds that the city “offers a quality of life that has no comparison” in a “tapestry of life and relationships that no other city in the world can guarantee.”

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