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Doctors and nurses continue to fall ill with coronavirus. They ask for a new one emergency shutdown because hospitals are collapsing and because there is a lack of staff and beds. Problems that affect health professionals as a whole. To tell us what it is Lorenzo Sgherri, a nurse who works at 118 in Florence, according to whom the problems of this second phase are essentially two: “The lack of family doctors willing to help patients at home and the overcrowding of hospitals. We like 118 sometimes we don’t even know where to take our patients because the facilities are full. In the end, we found a place. At the time. But let’s be clear, this is a war.
The masks are there, the pads are not
The masks, at least those, this time are quite different from the first wave in which especially the nurses had been sent into the fray against a virus they did not even know. ‘Of course, they still haven’t rubbed us today. They are provided only for those who have been in close contact with a positive or for those who have symptoms attributable to Covid. At most, we undergo a serology every two months. In other words, there is a “happy” control ».
A Davide (made up name, ed), a young nurse who works in a hospital in Lombardy and who asked us to remain anonymous, only had one swab done in these eight months. Nothing more: «They don’t want to do it because they are afraid of finding a large number of positives among us. And, of course, with the staff shortage, they can’t make us stay home. Eye that does not see, heart that does not hurt. So who treats patients? Do we let people die? For this reason – he confesses – “there is a strong feeling of anger and frustration for not having done anything in recent months.
“Patients tell us: ‘I didn’t respect the rules'”
A situation that seems to be “worse than the first” with “a virus that has not changed” but now worries more and more: “We have relapsed, unfortunately the solution continues to be to close everything as in March,” explained Lorenzo Sgherri. For Davide, however, a total closure would be of little use: “The problem is that the Italians are underestimating the problem. Do you know how many patients tell us, once we get to the hospital, “I was a fool, I didn’t respect the rules”? Meanwhile, in the trenches, we are the ones who, while the sick cry and ask us for help, we have to intubate them. We suffered a lot.
In short, tired, stressed and at the risk of doing their job badly: “All the nurses in Lombardy – continues Davide – manage three patients intubated in the intensive while in ordinary wards up to 10 each, all with C-PAP (the helmet that is placed on the patient to allow him to breathe, ed). So if I’m following a serious case, I run the risk of neglecting all the others. But it is possible? ».
The knot of family doctors
What infuriates Lorenzo Sgherri the most, however, are the excessive calls to 118 patients who could be seen at home, without having to go to the hospital: «Do you know what they tell us? That the family doctors do not want to go home, in other cases they tell us that they have received therapy for seven days but on the eighth day, exhausted, they call us. For the love of God, family doctors will also have their reasons, they are afraid of the virus but this cannot continue. We cannot compensate for all the problems.
Why do nurses get sick
So why do so many nurses still get sick? “Because the threshold of care often drops after working hours,” Lorenzo tells us. Second Mario De SantisOn the other hand, a reference in Campania for Nursing, the Italian nurses union, this situation is also due to the “lack of preparation and the fear of the nurses and the disorganization” of those who must coordinate the emergency: “If they move nurses from the wards, for example orthopedics, infectious diseases, it is evident that these are not prepared. There is no improvisation and it is not possible for them to explain the dressing room to enter a Covid pavilion in a quarter of an hour. “” We will end up closing the hospitals instead of closing bars and restaurants, “he thundered.
Add to this the grueling shifts. For Davide, “the rest days that we skip every week, the double shifts, the suspension of vacations, we do not stop for a moment”: “We are fighting against an invisible enemy, a biological war where doctors and nurses have the task of treating the wounded. This is the truth, “he concludes.
Repertoire cover photo: ANSA / ANGELO CARCONI
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