The decision on the execution of the diagnostic swab for SARS-CoV2 infection for access to the emergency rooms “is left to the discretion of the health directorates and regional authorities”. This is foreseen by the ordinance signed by the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci, who also extended the use of masks only in the RSA and in hospital wards with fragile patients.
The ordinance provides for the extension of the obligation to wear a mask for workers, users and visitors of health facilities within the wards that house fragile, elderly or immunosuppressed patients, especially if with a high intensity of care, identified by the Health Departments of the health facilities themselves. The obligation is extended to workers, users and visitors of social-health and social-welfare facilities, including hospitality and long-term care facilities, nursing homes, hospices, rehabilitation facilities, residential facilities for the elderly, also not self-sufficient. In the other departments of the healthcare facilities and in the waiting rooms, the decision on the use of respiratory protective devices by healthcare workers and visitors remains at the discretion of the Healthcare Departments, who can order their use also for all those who present respiratory symptoms. No similar measures are envisaged for hospital spaces in any case located outside the hospital wards. Children under the age of six are not required to wear a mask; people with pathologies or disabilities that are incompatible with the use of the mask, as well as people who have to communicate with a person with a disability so as not to be able to use the device. The ordinance is in force from 1 May 2023 to 31 December 2023.
The ordinance also provides that individual family doctors and pediatricians will decide on the obligation to continue wearing masks in their offices. “As regards medical clinics – reads the provision – the decision on the use of respiratory protective devices remains at the discretion of general practitioners and pediatricians of free choice”. The previous ordinance which provided for the obligation to wear a mask in hospitals and Rsa expires on April 30th.
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