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Citizens in procession for a tampon. It also happens in our city: from morning to night, hundreds of cars line up inside, sometimes even outside, the itinerant leisure area of via Morelli, where, since the end of September, the Covid center has been installed managed by Spedali Civili. with the collaboration of Ats and the Poliambulanza Foundation.
A multifunctional area where, in addition to autoclaves, diagnostic tests, vaccinations and screening tests such as the Papanicolaou are performed. It is accessed by car and on foot, after measuring the fever and disinfecting the hands, and in most cases after making an appointment.
Thousands of cars lined up every day
The area dedicated to testing is inevitably the busiest: every day there are thousands of people who patiently queue up for a test which, it must be remembered, during the first wave was a mirage even for family members who they lived together. of Covid victims in Brescia. Now making a tampon is much easier, even if it was not prescribed by your GP, pediatrician or Ats.
In fact, anyone can go to the Covid center located between via Volta and via Morelli and perform the diagnostic test. Of course, without reservation or report by Ats, you have to put your wallet in your hand: to leave the national health system you only have to pay (not in cash, only debit or credit cards) 70 euros. It is not necessary to reserve, as in other private structures, and in this case the waiting times are really short (on average 30 minutes).
Longer wait for students, teachers and school staff
Elena, a young future mother, also tells us that she crossed the threshold of the city center with her 3 1/2 year old daughter. Both veterans of 10 days of quarantine for having been in contact with a relative who tested positive for Covid-19 appeared on the day and time established by Ats to perform the swab. While Elena’s wait times would have been shorter, given the pre-arranged appointment, her little one would have to wait, and a long time too.
In fact, the cars are divided into three different rows immediately after entry: one is dedicated to those who are informed by Ats or by family doctors / pediatricians, another to those who perform paid tests, while the third, the It proceeds more slowly: It is reserved for students, teachers and school personnel of all levels (from kindergarten to high school). They also access without reservation – from Monday to Saturday, from 9 to 13 – but they have to arm themselves with a lot of patience. And very often the columns of cars hit the road, so much so that in recent days the local police have also had to intervene to order the ‘traffic’.
“Two hours of waiting and I had booked”
“I have been in the queue since 9.20 – Elena tells us – and an hour has passed: although I had an appointment agreed at 10.10 for the end of the quarantine buffer, I had to put myself in the column reserved for schools for my daughter to do it also and it is the only line that flows very slowly. At the entrance they explained to me that there was actually a way to skip the wait: pay 70 euros for the child’s test. I did not find it well: having also been in contact with a positive, she has the right to have it through the national health system and that is why I preferred to wait ”.
We meet again at 11.30am: after almost two hours, she and her son have taken the test and can go home to wait for the result. The result comes very quickly: it is usually ready the morning after the test (you can check it online, through the electronic medical record).
And Elena is not the only one who waits, in the car that follows a worried father, she jumps out the window and asks the volunteers to take priority: the daughter has a fever of 39 and is lying in the back seats. A nurse immediately runs up to him and moves the barriers to let him pass.
We often see her coming and going, always in a hurry, from the cars in the column to the acceptance point: she collects the documents and takes them to the colleagues who sort and prepare the labels to put on each test tube. A way like any other to try to reduce the wait as much as possible. An average of 1,000 swabs a day are performed at the city’s Covid center – but it has the potential to reach 2,000 – for students, teachers and school personnel, for those who have to pass the test before being admitted to the Civil Hospital and also those who return from a trip to one of the countries at risk.
Not just tampons
In the second tensioned structure, some outpatient activities are carried out, which guarantees the continuity of some services despite the epidemic. Specifically, there are vaccinations and reminders for children and adults, serological tests and screening tests. Not only that: an area has already been set up to avoid traffic jams in the emergency rooms of the city’s hospitals. These are external consultations managed in collaboration with Ats Brescia, where there are three doctors from Usca, the special teams of young doctors created to attend the coronavirus emergency, and the Polyambulanza nurses: their task is to evaluate the paucisymptomatic patients sent by the doctors. basic, which may receive some diagnostic tests (lung ultrasound, blood tests, swab) necessary to know if the patient can be treated at home or if hospitalization is necessary.
