Health, unions critical of the management of the fourth wave: “Hospital without a project”

“We are not in an emergency situation comparable to last winter since we all have the possibility to move freely through the streets of the cities as well as, thanks to the super green pass, to travel, dine in restaurants, go to the movies and ski. Despite all this, human resource management in the hospital is remained anchored to the old emergency schemes and without the much requested adjustments”.

To sound the alarm are the Thetrade union organizations of medical and hospital health management Aaroi-Emac, Anaao-Assomed, Aupi, Cimo, ma also those of the health sector Cisl Fp, Fp Cgil, Fvm, Savt Health, Snr and UilFpl.

The required adjustments

The trade unions – reads a note – “on the basis of recent dramatic experiences and with a view to management efficiency” have advanced diverse requests “And given ample availability to share organizational processes”.

Among the adjustments, they list:

1. the establishment, also by means of appropriate certification, of a task force of doctors and nurses specialized in the management of Covid patients, to be allocated to Covid departments if there was a need;
2. the increase of the workforce through competitions regarding the most suitable specializations for the treatment of Covid as a priority (infectious diseases, pneumology) and to follow all the others;
3. in case of new pandemic waves, employment “reasoned” and previously organized the human resources available (doctors, nurses and Oss) instead of the simplistic and early movement of health workers from surgical departments to Covid ones, which instead causes, as has already happened 3 times, the closure of surgical beds (because they lack adequate health care), the overall reduction of available beds in hospital for non-Covid diseases and the inevitable clogging of the emergency room already burdened by inappropriate access, with serious inconvenience for health professionals and for citizens who need care;
4. the timely and temporary reduction of outpatient activities for pathologies chronic, deferrable and in any case manageable also on the territory;
5. the non-prescription, in the first instance, of surgeons to treat patients with Covid pneumonia, on the basis of the simple reasoning that surgeons should make surgeons (it seems obvious, but those who have a managerial function in this hospital obviously think differently) and be ordered only in case of real need and only after the personnel most suitable for the treatment of this pathology has been employed in assisting Covid patients, safeguarding compliance with the LEA for citizens and guaranteeing assistance for non-Covid hospitalized patients.

Result? “The requests made were not only not accepted – add the medical unions -, but not even considered. Who supervises the management of the personnel operating in the hospital unit recruits medical volunteers or precept of any specialization (even non-equivalent or similar) to assist patients hospitalized for Covid based on the ‘logic’ of the heads present in the various structures and not based on specific skills. And the same methods of action are applied by those who manage the sector staff “.

“Series B” patients

Not only that: “Surgical and non-Covid patients are, for the fourth time, returned to being considered patients of ‘B series‘because their diagnostic-therapeutic paths and their hospitalizations are progressively suspended, thus effectively blocking for the fourth time the elimination of waiting lists, including surgical ones. The operating rooms come open and closed as if the surgery department were one ‘accordion‘, with the usual reason for the emergency (it is a pity that this practice was systematically adopted even in the past few weeks, when there were less than twenty patients hospitalized for Covid and the emergency was not there!) “.

The same fate – add the social partners – “has fallen to the hospital beds, as early as mid-November, first closed and then reopened, in departments such as general surgery and specialist medicines with the ‘motivation’ of the absolute need to allocate nurses and Oss to Covid activities due to a lack of staff. What followed? Clogging of the PS for days due to no Covid patients awaiting hospitalization”.

The “filter” of the territory

“Again – continues the note -, Covid hospitalizations are gradually increasing due to chronic and inadequate filter on the territory for non-acute cases and the difficulty in discharging non-serious Covid patients from the hospital to send them to their homes or to local facilities “.

With a tangible effect: “With these assumptions, the risk that the region could become ‘yellow zone’ or even ‘orange’, but not for epidemiological reasons related to the virus, it seems quite concrete. The hospital continues to be cyclically paralyzed, with healthcare workers being moved from one place to another, without a project that includes which activities (also outpatient) are effectively and temporarily ‘expendable’ and which ones are not, to avoid that access to treatment during pandemic waves is still limited only to patients who need hospitalization for urgent or non-deferrable diseases “.

Unions that, despite their availability, complain of having “been predominantly bypassati instead of being actively involved. The commitments undertaken by the Department and the Regional Government for the attractiveness and measures in favor of medical, health and veterinary management and technical and nursing staff will be of little use, if the logic and management mechanisms will always remain the same “.

Or rather, the trade unions of Medical and Health Hospital Executives “now desperate and exasperated, have for a long time hoped for a change of pace which to date has not been implemented by those who have for years been in charge of managing the beds and health personnel of the hospital. We hope that the General Manager of the Usl Company, in order to make up for the unchanged organizational deficiencies of the ‘actors and actresses’ on stage, iactively intervene and take charge of these processes immediately. We reiterate that thepublic health cannot be alone ‘Covid and vaccines‘for the only Usl company in the region ”.