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by FABIO TANZILLI
GIAVENO – Year after year, the health service of ASL To3 in Valsusa and Valsangone loses its pieces. Now it’s up to Giaveno to say goodbye (momentarily?) To an important health service, which concerns the fundamental sector of emergencies and emergencies. All to the detriment of the residents.
After the farewell to the hospital and downgrading to a simple health center, now Giaveno and Valsangone will also have to do without the “mini” first aid with emergency doctors, technically called PPI (First Intervention Point).
The new director of the ASL, Franca Dall’Occo, explained that the (temporary?) Closure of the PPI of Giaveno is due to the absence of urgent doctors available not only in Piedmont, but also throughout Italy.
To date, however, only Giaveno is the seat penalized by this “sudden” shortage (the PPI has not been closed in Venaria), despite official acts and resolutions providing for the PPI to be kept in the former downgraded hospitals.
In this way the Giaveno health center is no longer part of the emergency service network (Dea). In place of the First Intervention Point, from 12 July in Giaveno there will be un simple direct access clinic, open from Monday to Friday from 8 to 20 (on the weekend there will be a medical guard): in essence, anyone with emergencies, it is better to go directly to Rivoli or to San Luigi di Orbassano.
For the occasion, trying in vain to gild the pill, the ASL has invented a new acronym to give a name to the new downgrading of Giaveno: from “PPI” to “Pad”.
But the loss of services is considerable, because the First Intervention Point was used precisely to ensure with the doctors in the emergency sector and the 118 on site an urgent response to the health needs of the patient in “critical or sub-critical” conditions, which obviously cannot be done by a simple clinic with a medical guard, even if it will be direct access and in connection with 118 in case of need (and we would still miss it if it were not).
The first signs that could make you suspicious about the new downgrading of Giaveno arrived at the end of last year, just when the 118 post inside the former hospital, essential for guaranteeing the First Intervention Point service, was moved elsewhere, in the headquarters of the Red Cross of Giaveno.
In order not to be “fooled” by the acronyms, it is necessary to point out that the PPI in Giaveno represented the first level of operations in the emergency sector, it was a small “detachment” of the Rivoli Emergency Department, with medical personnel specialized in emergency management. Now it will no longer be like this. In the health sector, “the content counts”, the health personnel employed and the services actually offered to citizens: not the acronyms and abbreviations handed down by politicians and bureaucrats, which are often just a decoy.
In fact, the Giaveno First Aid Point was a “mini” Emergency Department that dealt with the emergency-urgency services connected to Rivoli, not a simple clinic with a medical guard.
Minor emergencies were treated, that is, small medical-surgical acts, undefined illnesses and simple instrumental diagnostics, carrying out immediate transport to Rivoli with the 118 in the most serious cases. All services that a simple clinic obviously cannot offer (otherwise, if this were the case, PPIs would not be needed throughout Italy).
Unlike the emergency rooms in Susa and Rivoli, the First Aid Point in Giaveno had reduced hours, but still significant (12 hours a day, opening every day from 8 to 20, even on weekends).
The First Intervention Point of Giaveno, with doctors and nurses specialized in the emergency sector, could manage at least the patients who needed treatment with white and green codes, that is the lower levels of urgency, with the aim of “lightening” the Pronto Soccorso di Rivoli and immediately guarantee immediate care to the citizens of Giaveno and Valsangone. As well as stabilizing the patients who had to be rushed to Rivoli.
Now, however, whoever knocks on the door of the former Giaveno hospital will find a simple clinic not dedicated to emergencies. Certainly at the Giaveno Pad it will be possible to have medical examinations, stitch removal, dressings, etc., but all this has nothing to do with the management of citizens who have urgent problems, health activities that were previously guaranteed.
Those who have problems must immediately go directly to Rivoli (or Orbassano): an obvious disservice also as regards the difficulty of travel and travel times, taking into account that Giaveno does not have easy road connections to quickly reach these two cities … let alone for those who live in the villages.
THE POLITICIANS OF GIAVENO? SHY OR ABSENT
In the face of all this, it seems paradoxical that it is always Giaveno who is penalized. The response of politics, to date, appears very timid, if not absent. Indeed, there are those who criticize the fact that the closure of the emergency service in Giaveno was presented on social media with a group photo of the mayor together with the local health authorities.
Elsewhere, when an important health service is closed, people take to the streets, protest initiatives are organized involving citizens or go directly under the buildings that matter, in Giaveno instead they take group photos. The Pd from the opposition has announced “a collection of signatures”, but it is clear that certain initiatives, to have value and more consistency, should obtain the institutional support of everyone and not just a political party.
Some evil ones say that up to now it was not even useful to have in the city a municipal administration also led by members of the League, which in theory should have “privileged” connections with the Piedmont Region of Cirio, and two parliamentarians: at least to make citizens’ voices heard and in the places that matter.
The mayor announced that he had asked for a meeting with the councilor Icardi for the reactivation of the First Intervention Point in Giaveno. All very timidly. Yet Giaveno has the resources to raise his voice and not “continue to lose pieces”: it would be enough to start with “making a system” by joining forces despite the differences of the past and beating his fists, in fact, working together among the various political exponents local and national, unite at least for this battle with a common goal.
At least for once, since we are talking about health and public health. Without lowering your head or looking away. The decisions on the health center of Giaveno are taken by the ASL and the Region, but whoever represents the citizens of Giaveno in the institutions, in every area, has the duty to fight to guarantee first of all their right to health, defending services for their citizens in the best possible way.
Healthcare is the first thing. Before even thinking about festivals, butterflies, mushrooms and armchairs.
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