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CATANIA – They are the prisoners of Covid. Infected, but escaped the pandemic. And now closed at home. Convicted pending hyssop. Or perhaps with an even more mocking fate, a kind of torture from Tantalus, whereby the rediscovered freedom – in bureaucracy the so-called “curative measure” – of asymptomatic patients in isolation is delayed for weeks even after the negative test result. Condemning hundreds of people to mad limbo: cured for science, but not for Asp. In Sicily, the stories, including the social outbursts, the emails at the editorial office, and even some complaints at the magistrates’ table, are a mosaic of anger and shame, a huge collective diary of Pelican’s memory. There is the desperate cry of Anna G., from Palermo segregated at her home since October 21 with her husband and son (negative), subjected to hyssop at 16 days and still waiting for the outcome. There’s the story of Eleonora Chicarella, as positive as her husband and son, who, after a grueling odyssey that began on October 26, amid late tampons and lost results, overloaded emails and unanswered phone calls, wonders : “How much do we have to stay at home forgotten by everyone?” And he denounces how in his case “the dignity and mental health of people have been killed.”
And under the Volcano there is also the testimony of Francesca A .: «I, positive and asymptomatic and my 19 days in prison at home. I got a call from an ASP doctor just eight days after my positivity. The usual questions, contact tracing, not all, and a new measure of home isolation for my parents. The first and second swabs are negative and free, I am at home waiting for the Usca. Meanwhile, the ASP never responded to me either by phone or by email. Finally, the self-report: “I had to ask for a recommendation to get Usca, a right to health, to become a favor …”.
From the particular to the general, a continuous stream of Sicilian testimonies, very common – it must be said, to be honest – with the situation of other regions in trouble. But that there is a problem on the island can also be understood using a deductive approach. And that is, starting from the general data. In the latest weekly report from the Ministry of Health and the Higher Institute of Health, in fact, Sicily, despite having one of the lowest Rt indices in Italy, still has a “general risk classification” indicated as “high” . And among the main factors of the choice are some “indicators on the ability to diagnose, investigate and manage contacts.” Among them the “possibility of guaranteeing adequate resources for the location of contacts, isolation and quarantine.”
In particular, indicator 2.5 – on professional figures dedicated to the asymptomatic at home – places Sicily, together with Tuscany and Lombardy, in the fourth last national place: less than one person (0.9) dedicated to this task for every 10 thousand inhabitants, exactly half of human resources in the field in Veneto. Worse than us only Campania (0.7), Abruzzo and Calabria (0.6). From statistics to reality, the axis of the question is the Usca. Health acronym (Special Continuity Care Units) until a few months ago unknown to most and now the subject of heated discussions in the bar. It is no coincidence that the Region seeks coverage by strengthening the personnel and means of those who physically take care of, among other things, the home management of asymptomatic patients. In Palermo, where the most important delays were registered, we learned from sources in the Health Department of 332 contracts, including 281 doctors and 39 nurses to strengthen the system. What is also overwhelmed by the choice, brave and visionary, to invest in a massive screening: 72,000 quick swabs in three days of drive-in movies in the island’s cities.
Each of the nearly 2,000 new asymptomatic people discovered, in fact, it enters the bureaucratic process of the Asp, joining the lines with other systems. In Catania, for example, until the end of last week there were 6,000 positives to manage. With an average waiting time of 10 days for the “official” tampon and accumulated delays in the notification of the isolation and healing measures. Now the system will be sped up by some major fixes. Ascoli-Tomaselli focused on molecular swabs for some categories of asymptomatic patients: those who tested positive in the rapid test and those who are in home isolation waiting for another swab, summoned after telephone triage. During the weekend, according to ASP, more than a thousand people were released: 350 negative for the molecular swab and another 700 “whose data had already been acquired, but not yet uploaded.”
The goal, when fully operational, is to “reach 1,400 daily tampons, also with the support of the laboratories of the hospitals of Catania, waiting for the ASP to equip itself with its own laboratory in San Giorgio ”, announces Franco Luca, head of the Department of Territorial Activities. And the system of 41 Usca Catania is also reorganized: more than 200 doctors in the field, plus those of the staff of the Covid commissioner, Pino Liberti, for an average of 10-12 swabs per day for each special unit. But also with a “decentralization” in the province’s health districts: everyone will have to deal with the entire supply chain (from isolation to cure) of positive “interns” at home. All this while waiting for the therapeutic protocol of the regional CTS to take off, as was also expected by health officials in several provinces, in which “the role of the general practitioner becomes fundamental, even more so when it is integrated by the Usca and supported by the departments”. It is a pity that Lazio TAR, convened by the union in white coats, does not believe it: general practitioners cannot be trusted with home care.
Twitter: @MarioBarresi
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