Over 2,600 signatures at the bottom of the initiative launched by a mother on change.org. The management: “The department will be back in operation by October”
IVREA
Pediatrics at the Ivrea hospital becomes a case. The hospitalizations have been blocked for 10 months (from November 2020), on the occasion of the reorganization of spaces and resources to cope with the second wave of the pandemic, the service has never reopened. And a mother who experienced firsthand the transfer to Ciriè with her baby, opened a collection of signatures on Change.org that collected 2 thousand signatures in 48 hours to ask for the reopening of the ward. Yesterday afternoon, subscriptions continued to grow and were already over 2,600.
The ASL / To4 talks about system pediatric paths within the company, also considering Chivasso and Ciriè and clarifies that no pediatrics are closed. It is a question of form. Because, in essence, closed Ivrea is the possibility of hospitalization or intensive short observation. In practice, pediatric first aid services are provided at the Ivrea hospital within 24 hours, but if a stay in the hospital is necessary, a transfer to Ciriè is organized. And this is what happened to Sara Capello with her ten-month-old baby. Transfer by ambulance with the child in her arms to Ciriè, not to mention the discomfort linked to the distance (mothers remain in the ward with their children, but there are no support services for them) and the lack of means that connect the two cities . Once back home, Sara Capello launched the petition. «In telling what had happened to me – he says – I learned of similar experiences that involved other people. They have always talked to me about the Ivrea Pediatrics as a service of excellence and cannot remain closed. So, one evening, when the children were put to sleep, the petition was born because I think it is right to be heard ». The argument is caught between those who have used the pediatric paths developed by the ASL and those who have not. «I am the mother of a small child – says Alice Visconti – and it worries me to think that there is no such service in the hospital in Ivrea, a reference point for all the municipalities in the area. For example, I don’t drive the car and we know how the connections are ». The theme of the closure of the ward had been smoldering for a while. The pressure of Covid patients on hospitals has been reduced, activities kept at a low rate in the summer period due to the shortage of personnel, especially in some sectors, now the real issue is the resumption of services at the levels of the pre-pandemic period.
From the management of the ASL / To4, led by Stefano Scarpetta, they say that the department will reopen with all related activities “presumably by October”. The ward, however, will no longer be on the ground floor of the hospital, where it was until before the pandemic. There, now, oncology has been transferred. Pediatrics will find a home on the third floor of block A of the hospital, once the cardiology move has been completed, which instead moves to the ground floor where the Coronary Intensive Care Unit is located, in the spaces where the hospital was once active. emergency room.
As for the shortage of pediatri, the topic is older than the pandemic. There are few doctors specializing in paediatrics and in some peripheral hospitals the shortage, as it happens in other disciplines, is more marked. Ivrea is one of them. The only pediatrician employed by the ASL / To4 is Affif Barbara, acting director of the service until October, appointed last January after the previous head physician, Alessandro Vigo, who arrived at the end of May 2018 won the competition for the same position at the ‘Asl Cuneo 2. There is also another professional hired with a Covid contract, while all the other shifts are covered with token-operated doctors. Some resources, however, in the context of the recruitment of doctors in progress for various disciplines in Asl / To4, should arrive. Three questions came to the competition for temporary pediatricians. Eighty-eight, on the other hand, are those presented in the open-ended paediatricians competition announced by the ASL / To4 for all companies in the Turin metropolitan area. The ASL management also says that the competition for the new primary will also be announced: the Region has given the green light.