“GPs don’t filter mild cases.” The boss of 118: first aid to the extreme

President Balzanelli, these days we have heard of collapsed hospitals, ambulances queuing for hours, patients waiting for days. What is the situation in the emergency room?

“The situation is as expected, with the approach of winter – answers Mario Balzanelli, president of the Italian company System 118, responsible for a Covid station with 20 beds in Taranto -. The national emergency system runs the risk of failure. If the 118 means and endowments are not increased, and if dedicated areas are not created for the care of high volumes of acute and symptomatic patients, it is an important methodological error to make decisions thinking only of the asymptomatic and contagions: the true The data to monitor it is the filling of intensive care, which doubles from weeks to weeks ”.

The head of Covid departments in Lombard’s emergency rooms, Guido Bertolini, yells that the national closure is needed, because the situation in Italian emergency rooms is dramatic. What you think?

“I think it is necessary to reinforce individual protection measures by closing the three routes of entry of the virus: eyes, nose and mouth. You should use the visor together with the mask if you cannot maintain interpersonal distance. I say: release everyone, except Blockade. Let’s stay as far away as possible, go to the open spaces, we disperse to the sea, to the mountains. 95% of the positives are asymptomatic and if we lock ourselves in condominiums in winter, considering the high level of contagion of the virus, we run the risk of frying entire cities in buildings. With a confinement we would infect relatives, neighbors, the elderly. 60 million Italians cannot be tied down “.

Why do ambulances, especially in Lazio and Lombardy, have to stand in line at the entrance to the emergency room and not immediately unload patients in assigned rooms?

“The lack of hospital planning pushes the staff to delay the care of the sick for days. This political mismanagement of the health emergency has caused the paralysis of the moment of arrival of acute patients, with a permanent blockage of access and an unnatural lengthening and dangerous times of hospitalization. The consequences? Several people died while waiting in the emergency room. “

Italians are a hypochondriac people. What percentage of citizens are responsible for unnecessarily plugging the switchboard and delaying 118 interventions?

“Operational centers are overwhelmed by requests from anxious and scared people. All this must be understood and an organized response must be given. First, the official line of epidemiological communication to the population must be uniform and always based on scientific evidence. messages from the experts in constant contradiction, are the antithesis of health education at such a critical moment ”.

Is the obstruction in the work 118 also due to the lack of filter on the part of the family doctors?

“Any filter has been insufficient and deserves very significant support. The 118 have been overwhelmed by phone calls from non-emergency cases for 25 years: we are used to handling an excessive amount of work. The population should often call doctors family, but he considers us the privileged interlocutors ”.

In your industry, what has the government not done in these six months?

“We had requested a reinforcement of mobile emergency vehicles and operational centers: at least 20% more nurses would be hired. It was necessary to give the oximeter to each positive in home isolation: the oxygen reduction occurs 3-4 days before hospitalization was necessary, so that severe cases do not reach the ward with destroyed lungs. It was necessary to equip hospital staff with adequate protective devices. Adequate spaces were needed to house patients, field hospitals such as in Wuhan, a Covid house for domiciliary income and not to crowd the sick with their families. Finally, there are no fans. “