Meeting with the Veronese experts
Borgo Trento The intensive care unit, under pressure for a long time during the pandemic
Borgo Trento The intensive care unit, under pressure for a long time during the pandemic
A future in which we will inevitably have to live with the coronavirus. With the need therefore to contrast it with a different healthcare despite the great work carried out at local and national level, but which is even more attentive to the territory and with the ability to reach even the most critical areas.
These are just some of the issues discussed during the fifth commission of the Municipality of Verona Health, which had as its topic “Covid 19 past present future” chaired by Gianmarco Padovani, with the intervention of three experts:‘infectious disease specialist Ercole Concia, he pneumologo Claudio Micheletto and Massimo Valsecchi, former director of the USL Prevention Department 20.
“In Italy the situation is quite good, the number of infections is decreasing, that of the dead is decreasing but more slowly. It is mad that these deaths could have been avoided with the vaccine “, the thought of Professor Concia who then recalled the nearly 500 operators who died nationwide also due to the lack of adequate protective equipment.
«Today in Italy we have about 73 per cent of vaccinated people, but we must also intervene in third world countries, such as in Africa, otherwise we will never get rid of it ». Forced coexistence with the virus, even in the future, seems almost a certainty. “The virus will most likely become endemic like the flu, we don’t have to ask ourselves if there will be other pandemics but how to deal with them when they arrive, it is certain that they will come.”
On the territory. According to Concia, the right recipe has some fundamental ingredients: “A new territorial medicine, the strengthening of the microbiology laboratories and that of the public hygiene departments, a greater integration between hospital, university and territory, which among other things in Verona works very well. I remember that the Recovery fund allocates seven billion to healthcare, and two important things are in the making: it will change the approach to the general practitioner with community homes that will also bring together nurses, social workers and other staff, and will focus on community hospitals, mainly nursing facilities with 20 to 40 beds “.
Massimo Valsecchi is also on a common line of thought. “The Italian health care has withstood the shock it has suffered quite well, but the pandemic has also highlighted errors not to be repeated in the future “, his analysis shared with the Scaligeri city councilors,” the great mortality of doctors and nurses was also due to the lack of protective devices, when instead there was also a plan prepared in the Region for the storage of protective suits. The other serious limitation is the impoverishment of human resources in recent years, the Prevention departments collapsed quickly but fortunately Veneto held up. In Verona, however, there is no head of public hygiene, a tender is underway for 23 doctors who will lend a big hand ».
In the most deficient areas. According to Valsecchi, it is necessary to focus on territorial medicine. «There is a dramatic situation, with more than 100 areas with a shortage of general practitioners, with the Recovery fund I hope there is a decisive turning point, shifting the focus from hospitals to territorial ones. The money is there and must be spent well and local choices will also be important: the mayors of the various municipalities give priority to bringing together doctors and nurses to serve those areas that are lacking it, for example mountains or suburbs, evaluating a new balance to relocate resources in the most uncovered and disadvantaged places from this point of view “. •.