Nursing up: “Vaccinated nurse is dying. We want answers”

“A 43-year-old nurse, subjected to the first dose as early as January, and covered with the second in the following weeks like many other colleagues, is now in very serious condition due to Covid. In these hours, as our referents tell us, the man, originally from Palermo, would be dying from a very serious form of pneumonia. He was transferred last Saturday from the Intensive Care Unit of the Cervello hospital in Palermo to the Mediterranean Transplant Institute to undergo extracorporeal respiration (Ecmo), the last chance to save his life. Like so many colleagues, eight months ago he had completed the vaccination cycle ”. This is what Antonio De Palma, National President of Nursing Up, the nurses’ union, reports in a note.

“At this point – adds the trade unionist – we ask for serious and detailed insights. And we do not accept, in any way, that all this ends up in the cauldron, “stamped” as a normal and unfortunate fact, which falls within the mere case history of that 5% of ineffectiveness of the anti-covid vaccine “.

“We reiterate – insists De Palma – our public request to the Ministry of Health, so that the reasons for the many infections among health workers be made known through specific studies and in-depth studies. We do not consider mere and varied opinions sufficient, even if they deserve the utmost attention when given by authoritative personalities of the scientific world: our nurses ask for official positions supported by scientific evidence. We ask to know what the immunization coverage levels of the vaccine are compared to the Delta variant. Who assures us that they are the same as the original ALFA variant? Are we sure it is still 95%, or has the effectiveness been reduced? “.

“Government and Regions have too often entrenched themselves behind that small percentage (about 5%) of people who would be vaccine-resistant, forgetting that we are struggling with human lives, even before health professionals”.

“The contribution that we Italian nurses have paid in terms of deaths and infections is very heavy, explains De Palma. “And the INAIL data overwhelmingly confirms that 82% of the operators who become infected are nurses. But that’s not all, because in the first place, as regards the category of workers who have reported the highest number of victims in the workplace in recent months, we are still there! “

“In the meantime, hospital outbreaks are increasing. Last Saturday at the Cervello in Palermo the nephrology and dialysis ward was closed. They also tell us about another outbreak in a Lazio RSA with numerous infected operators. All this cannot leave us insensitive ”.

“Can the Regions and health authorities and hospitals guarantee that in cases like these the nurses are protected by mass and continuous screening? At what point is the activity of measuring the antibody level of health workers already vaccinated in hospitals like the one in Palermo? “

“Can they, above all, assure us that everything possible has been done, in terms of prevention, so that the 43-year-old didn’t get sick? Is it perhaps just a coincidence that his family members, including his elderly father, have also become infected? It is not fair, it is not appropriate, to justify everything with that 5% range of potential ineffectiveness of the vaccine, too easy! ”, Says the president of Nursing Up.

“A diabetic nurse who voluntarily decides to get vaccinated, who acts professionally and conscientiously, should feel confident about his level of protection, especially since his health is already precarious. So let us tell, certain numbers and scientific evidence in hand, how many nurses today, vaccinated at the beginning of the year, take care of patients in hospital with an insufficient immune level to guarantee their health. The Ministry of Health should clarify the timing of the vaccine‘s effectiveness. The life of a man, of a nurse, does not represent a mere casuistry ”, concludes De Palma.