Oristano
Absences due to covid affect the hospital’s activities. Overwork for those who remained is in the ward
After the emergency room emergency now, al San Martino di Oristanothere is that of the department Medicine, whose operation is severely affected by the large number of nurses absent because they are positive or sick, precisely at a time of greater need for personnel.
With the reorganization of the service, triggered after the spread of infections among patients and healthcare professionals, the inpatients were in fact divided into two distinct areas: one that hosts the Covid positive (23 those currently hospitalized) and the other with 31 beds dedicated to virus negatives. An insufficient number, considering that patients are systematically diverted “in support” to other departments.
The new structure of the department would need two distinct staff, one for each of the two areas. Instead, he finds himself having to deal with only the original staff, already insufficient and now also decimated by absences. At the moment there are 10 nurses left at home, of which 6 positive for Covid and 4 in disease. Also absent 4 OO.SS., also positive.
The staff of doctors is no exception, already underpowered, which turns out to be insufficient to meet the new needs. The arrival of two pulmonologists, one of whom immediately had to be absent due to health problems, did not solve the problem.
To replace the absent nurses, colleagues from other departments and two nurses just hired by an interim agency have alternated for a few days. A solution that not only accentuates the shortcomings in the departments of origin, does not solve but rather contributes to worsening the already serious difficulties. The nurses arrived to support, even with the maximum commitment shown, often in fact move with great difficulty in a ward that is not theirs. Hence the inevitable drawbacks in the management of care and assistance.
Nor are the medical departments of the Mastino di Bosa and Delogu di Ghilarza better off.
The Medicine of the Mastiff of Bosa, which should only host negative patients, has in fact now become a Covid ward. It currently hosts 12 e remains open thanks to the only three doctors left on duty after the positive swabs of two of their colleagues. For the moment, the three doctors manage to alternate taking shifts and give up rest periods, in contrast to all the limits imposed by law on the number of shifts and hours of work, but the situation, of exceptional stress, cannot last long. In Bosa at the moment an OS is also absent, because it is positive for Covid, and the 8 nurses who were infected are slowly returning to work.
No contagion at the moment among nurses al Delogu of Ghilarza, which constantly sees all 16 beds occupied by Covid patients. Serious difficulties also here for the coverage of shifts, entrusted to just 4 doctors, who remained on duty after the infection of one of them and the return to Oristano of a pulmonologist. Result: some of the doctors on duty find themselves having to work up to 60 hours a week.
All the staff of the three different medical departments (Oristano, Bosa and Ghilarza) thus find themselves operating with excessive workloads and responsibilities, destined to weigh on the serenity and psycho-physical stability of doctors and nurses.
On the other hand, a clearing seems to arrive at San Martino First Aid, where yesterday one of the doctors returned home for two weeks because it was positive. The other six doctors of the staff are still absent, replaced by hired doctors or colleagues from other departments.
Meanwhile, the last Covid positive patient still hosted in the short observation area is about to be discharged. If no others arrive, the environments can be sanitized and the activity resumed with only the swab-negative patients. It would really be a great achievement.
Tuesday, February 16, 2022
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