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A girl covers her head with a reflective jacket to protect herself from the rain. The tired look behind the mask tells of the hours you spent waiting for a bed to be available to unlock your vehicle. He is one of the many rescuers queuing in front of the Sant’Andrea hospital in Rome. “We’ve been here since 11 in the morning,” he says. But she feels lucky: “There are colleagues who have been waiting here for more than 24 hours.” The blocking of emergency vehicles is one face of the emergency that has overwhelmed Lazio’s healthcare system. the stretchers they become beds and ambulances in places of isolation for the positive, because the rooms are full.
Covid ambulances locked out of emergency rooms
In recent days, the health councilor of the Zingaretti board, Alessio D’Amato, had announced the doubling, for Monday, of the beds dedicated to patients COVID-19, which brings the total of those available to 5,310. A measure that for now does not seem to have given the desired results. In fact, on Monday afternoon there were dozens of emergency vehicles lined up in front of the Sant’Andrea hospital.
“The second wave? It’s definitely worse than the first,” says an operator we chatted with outside the hospital. “Of course the situation has improved slightly compared to the last few days, when at least 70 ambulances were lined up to await the return of the stretcher, but we are still under pressure,” continues the boy. “It would take a new one emergency shutdownIt is the only solution to relieve pressure in the system, “he says confidently.
By Alessandro Saulini, Secretary of Nursind Ares 118, the increase in beds announced by the Region is only a “buffer measure”. “The blockade of stretchers in the capital emergency continues, with dozens of ambulances that every day remain in line for hours with the stretcher transformed into a ‘comfortable’ bed or even with the vehicle itself transformed into an isolation room for infected patients.” , denounces the trade unionist who calls for “immediate interventions to guarantee the prompt response of the emergency territorial system to the growing needs.”
Hospitals that collapse
The province of Rome is also suffering. According to sources from the Giornale.it, the blocks also continue in the Palestrina hospital, while in a Castelli hospital it has already been exhausted in the resuscitation. But it is in another province, that of Latina, where hospitals are practically collapsing. “At the moment outside the emergency room of the Santa Maria Goretti hospital there are ten ambulances blocked with the positive patient on board, says Vinicio Amici, regional secretary of Confail Sanità and ambulance driver by telephone, the result is that there are more cars in the area: today an emergency vehicle from Cori was forced to intervene in Terracina, traveling a distance of 70 kilometers ”.
Outside the Pontine hospitals you can stay up to eighteen hours in aambulance. So much so that more than one patient, operators say, has asked to be taken home, forgoing treatment. “The hospital – reports Amici – is saturated and we are exhausted.” In recent days, the League’s regional adviser, Angelo Tripodi, had denounced how at least fifty hospital operators in the Pontine capital had tested positive for the virus. “Many colleagues are infected – confirmed Amici by telephone – after all, spending eighteen hours in an ambulance in contact with a positive patient only increases the risk of infection.”
Staff shortages exacerbate the emergency
The of the personal it remains a crucial issue to deal with the emergency. Second Stefano barone, Provincial Secretary of Nursind, despite the hiring of recent months in Lazio, at least 2,500-3 thousand more nurses would be needed. “The number of beds increases, intensive care increases, but there is no one who cares for the patients,” denounces the union member. “The Region -accused- has been delayed, not to mention the Ministry of Health.” “After all, Minister Speranza spent his time this summer writing a book on the government’s responses to the emergency – perhaps, Barone notes, he thought Covid was a shelved practice.”
And instead, the second wave of the epidemic has overwhelmed almost all Italian regions. Even Lazio, which is still an area yellow but it could turn orange precisely because of the inconvenience in hospitals. Let’s see what the numbers will be in a couple of days, but of course this is one of the possibilities, “he says. Angelo tripodi, councilor of the Northern League of Pisana, who denounced the “delays of the Zingaretti board.”
“The Region has underestimated the problem”
“The problem has been underestimated, now the commissioner has put a patch on it with the increase in beds but the situation, especially in the province of Latina, continues to be dramatic,” he tells us by phone. The problem, according to Tripodi, is precisely the lack of organization. “It was necessary to strengthen the territorial network of medicine, since a large part of those who go to the emergency room have mild symptoms that could be managed at home with tools such as the oximeter or through the use of telemedicine,” he clarifies.
“If the system is holding up – he concludes – it is only thanks to the immense effort of doctors, nurses and first responders, who are working exhausting shifts in these hours.” The colleague of the Brothers of Italy also echoed him: Chiara colosimo: “Lazio arrived unprepared for the second wave, the pressure on the hospital network is unbearable and unprecedented.” “The photograph of our health care is the emergency ledge of Umberto I that collapses – attacks – within the best possible personnel, everything falls apart outside.”
