“Throttled in the clinic, I’ll change jobs” – breaking latest news

«I had been meditating for some time on the choice of starting a new faculty and changing profession, after this fact I know that it will certainly be the right choice and I will undertake it as soon as possible». Dr. Adelaide Andriani is 28 years old and has made her choice. As she herself says in a message sent via Whatsapp, she had been thinking about it “for some time now”. But after the attack suffered the other night she no longer has any doubts: she won’t be a doctor even if she has already graduated in Medicine and is a specialist in general surgery. A man tried to strangle her while she was on duty at the medical guard of the Gervasutta hospital in Udine.

«He put his hands around my neck and for a few moments I couldn’t breathe, I felt that the air was not passing. I thought: now I’m going to die of suffocation », she told the carabinieri. Luckily, at that moment she was next to her colleague who was on duty with her, Jade Aveni, 31 years old. It was Dr. Aveni who yanked the attacker and forced him to let go. Strong enough to leave conspicuous marks on the neck and cause abrasions for a five-day prognosis. But it’s not the physical hangovers that weigh the most. In this story, the drama and the greatest weight lie in feeling vulnerable, continually at risk even within the walls of a public facility such as a hospital.

It happened all day January 7th, that is, last Saturday. It was late afternoon, already dark. People who arrive inside the emergency medical premises – which today is called the continuity of care service – are usually first intercepted at the entrance via the intercom or they call: this to allow doctors to make a rough assessment of the problem and not to overcrowd the waiting room, given the known problems related to Covid. But that afternoon suddenly appear among the other waiting patients two men entered without the initial screening. One of them has a leg problem and limps, the other is only accompanying him. “The patient was not agitated, he told us that they were homeless and undocumented immigrants,” says Dr. Aveni.

«Instead, the other one, the companion, was very aggressive and rude. He really wanted us to look at the dressing on his leg which we were told had recently been done by the Red Cross. So we ended up dressing her up again, even though the dressing was fine. He had injuries whose nature, however, we could not establish and so we advised the patient to go to the emergency room for checks. When he came out and told the other one, outside the surgery, the other one took it very much. She knocked insistently, raised her voice, insulted … So I called the carabinieri ».

It is Dr. Andriani who recounts the most violent part in the minutes: «The chaperone, who must have been around fifty, at a certain point went towards the reception. I worried about the lady who was there alone and yelled at her to be careful and that we had called the police. That’s when he came towards meran after me as far as the door of the medical guard and put his hands around my neck...». The colleague saw the scene and began to tug at him: «I heard Adelaide gasping and I gave her a puller; I physically removed his hands from her neck and I also had a hard time because she squeezed a lot. I must say that the patient also tried to help me.
That man tried to kick me too without success. He swore. At one point he called the police and said in Italian: there are two tr .., put … he left before the carabinieri arrived, telling us that he knew how to get back to us anyway. I know they ID’d them. We asked: what if they come back? They told us: for any problem, call 112». Dr. Andriani had already suffered two attacks in Udine prison, where she had always been called as a continuity of care doctor. She lives alone in the city, where she came from Brianza and where her family lives.

Like her colleague, she is also not employed by the hospital: they are professionals who serve as freelancers, like the famous token doctors. If Dr. Andriani wants to change jobs, her friend and colleague Aveni is instead convinced that this is the right path for her. «I am happy to be and to be a doctor. Of course, I would like to feel safer, more protected…”. His is the post on facebook that sparked the case yesterday. Under the photographs of her colleague’s marked neck, Dr. Aveni writes: “Often the continuity of care doctor is considered a second-class doctor! Remember that behind the lab coat there are first of all people and it doesn’t exist for a human being to attack another human being, a doctor (moreover a public official) by attempting on his life, not counting the insults and threats! I appeal for this post to spread because I cannot think that another person, after my colleague, risks being strangled (…) It must not exist that a person, a doctor is physically and verbally insulted and threatened as happened to me!! We ask for more protection in the performance of our work! Until it happens to you, you don’t realize that once it went well but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be the same the next time …».