30% of patients who needed hospitalization during the pandemic remained waiting for a bed between 12 and 24 hours; 40% after 24. 30% under 6 hours. Patients who were fully taken care of by the doctors of one of the 650 emergency rooms around Italy. While our country slowly passes from the phase ofemergency to that of living with the virus, doctors and nurses I’m still under pressure. Despite the decrease in infections and hospitalizations, in the wards of Emergency Medicine and Urgency, not only the battle against covid-19 and its variants continues, but the health staff is also at the forefront to manage patients of all the others pathologies that are slowly returning.
Doctors and nurses
The International Day of Emergency and Urgency Medicine which is celebrated on May 27 with the aim of “spreading awareness among citizens and institutions on the importance of having efficient, competent and well-organized emergency services”. Born from the initiative of the European Society in Emergency Medicine (EUSEM), in Italy it is promoted by SIMEU (Italian Society of Emergency and Urgency Medicine), this year it arrives in full global vaccination campaign and when infections in our country ( and in much of the world) have not stopped yet. For the occasion, a video translated into 14 languages was also made: a tribute to Emergency Medicine. “The system held up during the pandemic because we emergency room doctors are used to living in an emergency and we embanked a river in flood while living with the well-known and chronic difficulties of structural and personnel shortages” he explains Paola Noto national councilor of SIMEU (Italian Society of Emergency and Urgency Medicine) and of the Emergency day Italy committee.
Covid has increased the emergency
A flood confirmed by a data: 100% of patients hospitalized for Covid have passed through one of the 650 emergency rooms in Italy in addition to people who arrived with other emergency pathologies. And if urgent cases should wait less than 6 hours to get a bed, an analysis carried out by SIMEU showed that only 30% of patients were transferred to the ward within that time limit. In fact, another 30% remained in the emergency room for over 12 hours, while another 40% remained well beyond 24 hours. In summary, during the pandemic, over 70% of patients (Covid and not) waited over 6 hours before being admitted to one of the wards.
More doctors are needed
“This period of pandemic has accentuated the chronic problems of the emergency room: the shortage of staff, the structures inadequate to support the influx of patients and the training of doctors. All issues that are not improvised but must be planned – underlines Paola Noto who, in no uncertain terms, adds – How many doctors do we need? Between 1500 and 2000. And if on the one hand it is true that infections are decreasing, the influx of emergency services has remained the same. In fact, patients infected with coronavirus have been joined by those who arrive with an acute disease, whose attendance after vaccines is increasing. This means that we must always keep two lines of access active: one “clean” and one “dirty for Covid patients. Thus, it often happens that the emergency doctor, who should ‘only’ take charge of the patient, stabilize him and make the diagnosis, actually takes care of him completely for 24-48 hours. In fact, our business has extended to real semi-intensive hospitalizations “.
“Don’t come to the emergency room for fever”
by Letizia Gabaglio
“In this post-pandemic we must not fall into the same mistakes as before – Dr. Noto stresses – we cannot go back to the chaos of stretchers with patients waiting for hospitalization in the corridors, crowded waiting rooms, but we must rethink management emergency medicine by linking it (for example with regard to the elderly) to local services. Today’s is the result of care models that work in watertight compartments. The images we saw at the beginning of the pandemic must no longer repeat themselves ”.
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