Pharmacy test even with symptoms
“It is forbidden and it is also dangerous”
Long times with Ats and many choose the “do it yourself”. Pharmacists: “So they put us and other customers at risk”
The “do it yourself” is now in force on the pads and the traces. Some citizens, even in the presence of symptoms, go to the pharmacy.
With the outbreak of the Omicron wave, the demand for tampons has increased again. In Como we have gone from about 50,000 tests processed per week in mid-December, a record never reached since the beginning of the pandemic, to 67,000 swabs analyzed last week. Finding a free appointment is a lottery game. Also from January, the new rules establish that a quick antigenic swab made in a pharmacy, not alone at home, is sufficient to be declared positive. So to trigger the quarantine and access the occupational disease.
“And so symptoms or non-symptoms all end up running to the pharmacy to swab – he explains
Daniele Luraschi
, doctor from Como – when, on the other hand, those who have a severe cold or have a fever could not go there. Symptomatic citizens should contact us doctors and ask for an appointment through the buffer points present in the area. Except that there is no room and so, to hurry up, many prefer to go to the pharmacies ».
The wait at the buffer centers lasts up to a week. Many doctors thus decide to directly sign the referral to take the swab trying to send their patients in the queue in via Napoleona or in via Castelnuovo. A practice not recommended by Ats and Asst Lariana due to the obvious organizational consequences. So, it is a fact, it is some doctors who suggest patients to go to the pharmacy, even in the presence of symptoms. “It’s a real problem,” he says
Giuseppe De Filippis
, president of the Como Order of Pharmacists – those with symptoms should not queue up next to other people, even coming into contact with us pharmacists. It is a risk for us and for everyone. It is necessary to turn to family doctors, they too could in theory like us do swabs, as well as hopefully to give correct and responsible information ». Once the pharmacies measured the fever at the entrance, now hardly anyone does it anymore.
Still problems
“The swabs and tracing system has been dumped on pharmacies,” he says
Nicola Arienti
, owner of the pharmacy in via Milano – when instead it had to be organized by the health authorities and the Region. I can understand the difficulties in the first and second waves, but we are now in the fourth ». Of course, making swabs, even at 15 euros each, is a profit. «We worked hard and well in eight people before the pandemic – replies Arienti – and we still work in eight in the pharmacy, but doing double the effort and with a greater risk. The requests are now nagging and I would gladly do without them ».
There is also a systematic use of “do-it-yourself” tampons whose outcome has no value. Citizens buy them even just to be safe and then they want a counter-proof. However, it should be remembered that even the “case contacts”, if they have made the third dose, in the absence of symptoms should not take the test, they must pay attention to the first alarm bells.
© breaking latest news