Some have waited up to five days in stretcher al emergency room of the Molinette with a diagnosis from Covid. And who, not having found the emergency medical service or the family doctor, presented himself with a principle of pneumonia directly to the hospital, finding himself surrounded by many in the same conditions as him. It is the combination of seasonal flu and the virus with which the world has been battling for almost three years now and which is now making hospitals feel their breath back down their necks, bringing them to the brink of collapse.
Flu and Covid
With an incidence more than doubled compared to the first 26,000 patients at the beginning of November, which became over 48,000 last week alone, in addition to 14 new cases per 1,000 assisted in the last seven days, the flu can rightly boast of having snatched the record to Covid in the race for infections, although the virus has not lost ground with 18,634 sick people in the last week in Piedmont. It is the hospitals that pay the price, starting from the emergency room where the first signal is that which comes from the so-called “boarding”, waiting on a stretcher before being admitted which, in any case, stands on an average of at least 72 hours of expected in Turin according to the Simeu and Anaoo Assomed unions.
Run to the hospitals
At Maria Vittoria, for example, there would be at least twelve patients a day to be hospitalized for Sars Cov2 against the availability of about two free beds every twenty-four hours in isolation. Meanwhile, the number of other patients to be hospitalized increases and cases of positivity are recorded in the wards: “It’s all a funnel within a funnel” the doctors vent. But the situation is also complicated in Molinette, where Covid patients remain on stretchers for up to 120 hours, and in Mauriziano, where there are many positives among the elderly: «On Friday, together with the other trade unions, we met with the Region to understand which measures had been taken – let us know Francis Coppolella of Nursind, the nurses’ union – They told us that the Local Health Authorities produced company plans against overcrowding but they didn’t tell us if they applied them and what results they produced».
Furthermore, in recent days it had been seen that Regina Margherita had also had to expand the availability of beds to accommodate 29 children with bronchiolitis, another seven with pneumonia and the same number with Covid.
Doctors’ alert
A picture that doesn’t surprise but alarms doctors starting with those who manage the arrival of emergencies every day. «We need a better organization to manage them in the area but we know that things won’t change soon, so we can only be worried because what has always been the most difficult season is starting and with a seasonal flu that has already shown in Australia how much increase hospitalizations and the use of emergency rooms» he explains fabio de iaco, national president of the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine. Adds Clare Rivettiregional secretary of the union Look: «Hospitals, starting with the emergency rooms, have never recovered from the emergency. The problem is that everyone goes there because they can’t find answers in the area». Coppolella confirms: «We risk a dramatic winter, as demonstrated by these first days of cold. We can discuss all we want but we will not get out of it until the staff increases, beds are added and territorial medicine services are strengthened ».
The voice of the patients
«We are worried by all these alarm signals – the lawyer intervenes Nadia Tecchiati, regional president of Cittadinanzattiva, an association that manages the patient’s rights court – From the long waits for token doctors, to the isolation of patients in the wards: it’s time to sit around a table and discuss how to resolve these problems. We propose ourselves as allies so that the voice of patients and their relatives is finally heard”.