Omicron. Ministry of Health activates maximum alert plan for hospitals and the territory to deal with it. Here are all the measures to be put in place

With a circular sent to the Regions and Municipalities, to the other competent ministries and to the professional health orders, the Ministry of Health recommends the timely activation at the regional level of all organizational measures to deal with a possible increase in the demand for health care, both at the territorial and hospital, ensuring the adequate care of patients affected by COVID-19 in relation to specific care needs. THE CIRCULAR.

DEC 19 – The Omicron variant worries the Government, especially for the possible care burden that could spill both on hospitals and on local services starting from the next few weeks following the feared greater infectious power of this variant with the consequent increase in new cases.

For this reason, with a circular sent yesterday to the Regions and Municipalities, to the other competent ministries and to the professional health orders, the Ministry of Health calls for the observance and implementation of a whole series of emergency measures to ensure ” adequate care of patients affected by COVID-19 in relation to specific care needs “.

In fact, in the last eight weeks there have been rapid increases in the incidence, which has now reached 241 cases / 100,000, and in the occupancy rate of beds in intensive care (9.6%) and in medical areas (12.1%). , while both the mean Rt calculated on symptomatic cases (1.13) and the transmissibility index based on hospitalized cases (1.09) remained stable and significantly above the epidemic threshold.

“Italy – writes the ministry – is therefore in an acute epidemic phase, characterized by a high speed of transmission of the SARS CoV-2 virus in most of the country”.

All this with the horizon “further epidemiological and welfare impacts potentially related to the greater spread of the viral variant Omicron, whose characteristics in terms of transmissibility, severity of the disease and sensitivity to vaccines currently in use – underlines the ministry – are not yet clearly defined. “.

Hence the reference to the provisions of the previous pandemic waves by implementing the measures already defined for the reshaping of the planned activity considered deferrable; the implementation of specific indications for pregnant-parturient, puerpera, newborn and breastfeeding, all providing for the reorganization of hospital and territorial services for the management of the emergency.

To do this, some measures indicated in the following circulars are recalled:

– n.7422 of 16/03/2020 “Guidelines for the reshaping of the scheduled activity considered deferrable in the course of an emergency by COVID-19”;

– n. 8076 of 30/03/2020 “Clarifications: Guidelines for the reshaping of the scheduled activity considered deferrable in the course of an emergency by COVID-19”;

– n.11257 of 03/31/2020 “COVID-19: indications for pregnant-parturient, puerpera, newborn and breastfeeding”;

– n. 7865 of 25/03/2020 “Update of the organizational guidelines of hospital and territorial services during the COVID-19 Emergency”;

– n. 27007 of 11/08/2020 “Elements of preparation and response to COVID-19 in the autumn-winter season”;

– n. 32732 of 12/10/2020 “Prevention and response to Covid-19: evolution of the strategy and planning in the transition phase for the autumn-winter period”;

– n. 22663 of 03/11/2020 “Organizational guidelines for the management of the COVID-19 emergency in the current epidemic phase”.

December 19, 2021
© All rights reserved

Other articles in Government and Parliament