TURIN. The judgment is lapidary: “Inadequate”. And if to say it are the Order of Doctors and the trade unions, we have to ask ourselves a few questions. We are talking about the future Health Park of Turin, which “is not up to the health needs of citizens and presents, as currently expected, a series of insurmountable criticalities that the experience of the Covid pandemic has brought out even more evidently “. This is the meaning of the letter sent to the Department of Health of the Region, the City of Health, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Objective: to ask that the whole project be re-discussed. To sign it are the Order of Doctors and Dentists of Turin, the Order of Nursing Professions of Turin, the medical unions Anaao Assomed, Aaroi Emac, Cimo Fesmed.
The limits
Nobody disputes the need for a health pole due to high complexity. The criticalities are linked to the hypothesized project and the insufficient extension of the chosen area. Specifically, they are: the excessive reduction in the number of beds (questionable in 2019, unthinkable in light of the experiences of the pandemic) from the current 2,300 to 1,040, which would be flanked by 400 places, transforming the CTO into a first level hospital. And again: the separation between high and medium-low complexity in two distinct structures within the same healthcare company, with negative repercussions on staff and teaching and dubious advantages in terms of cost-benefits; the duplication of on-call health personnel in the wards and the presence of two DEAs in part overlapping as competences, a few hundred meters apart, with potential conflicts on the level of adequate care and frequent need to transfer patients from one to another ; the limited possibility of expansion of the facility, if new technologies or any health emergencies, such as the one that has just occurred, require it; construction on land heavily contaminated with pollutants; the environmental impact for residents, in terms of vehicular traffic and noise, which has not been assessed.
The Covid warning
In practice, doctors and nurses write, “we believe that the concerns already expressed before the Covid emergency on the project have been further aggravated by recent events”. In conclusion: “We hope for a new project that does not provide for subdivisions into detached centers, fragmentation of the teaching centers, duplicates of first aid, or cuts in beds and that presents itself as a true and unique” Park of Health, Research and innovation “, in an extended, flexible, modular and expandable structure, in an area suitable for both care needs, teaching and research”.