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A video has emerged of a corpse lying in a hospital bathroom in a makeshift room packed with coronavirus patients amid a spiral of cases and deaths in Italy.
The unidentified man was a suspected coronavirus patient who had been waiting for a test in the crowded and seedy emergency waiting room of the Cardarelli Hospital in Naples.
The man who is filming, himself a Covid patient, says: ‘This man is dead, this is Cardarelli Hospital. Here we are, the emergency department.
‘This woman in her own urine and excrement, we do not know if she is alive or dead. The woman there, we don’t know anything.
Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, who comes from the region, said today: “The situation in Naples and in many areas of Campania is out of control … the central government must intervene because there is no time.”
The unidentified man was a suspected coronavirus patient and was photographed lying in the bathroom, the door of which opened directly into an emergency waiting room packed with bedridden patients in Naples.
Patients are seen lying on hospital beds placed in the waiting room of an A&E at the Naples hospital
The hospital appears to be absolutely full of patients to the extent that the A&E waiting room has been turned into a ward.
Italy recorded another 623 deaths on Wednesday, the highest number since the dark days of April 6.
The total number of cases surpassed the 1 million mark on Wednesday, with half of those infections emerging in just the past 19 days.
Health officials said they were investigating the death, but Di Maio said this was just the latest shocking incident he had heard of in recent days in Campania.
Rosario Lamonica, who took the video, said she filmed the images so that people could know what was happening.
‘When I asked for help, nobody listened to me, there were also those who told me’ take care of your own affairs, ” said Lamonica.
The 30-year-old man had been in the hospital for two days after testing positive for Covid-19 and experiencing respiratory problems.
“That person (the dead man) was with me in the room, along with other elderly people,” Lamonica told the Italian news agency ANSA.
Di Maio wrote on Facebook: ‘The video of the patient found dead in the bathroom of the Cardarelli Hospital is shocking. The life and right to health of every citizen are priorities that must be protected above all else. If local authorities do not do it, the state must.
“I have been silent until now out of respect for all institutions, but now we must intervene immediately, especially in the south, which is at risk of collapse.”
Authorities said Campania reflected a broader health calamity across much of southern Italy, which emerged largely unscathed from the initial wave of COVID-19 that primarily struck the north. But it is being hit by the second wave.
Italy recorded another 623 deaths on Wednesday, the highest number since April 6.
Meanwhile, the total number of cases surpassed the million mark, with half of those infections emerging in just the past 19 days.
There have been a total of 42,953 deaths, the sixth highest in the world.
Hospitals across the country have struggled to manage the dizzying numbers of COVID-19, but the poorer South appears particularly ill-equipped to cope despite having all summer to beef up its defenses.
Naples sick people have been given oxygen and drops have been put through their car windows as they wait for hours for COVID tests or to be admitted to hospital.
Medical workers arrive in an ambulance with a COVID-19 patient on a stretcher to the infectious diseases emergency unit at Cotugno hospital in Naples on Thursday.
Medical workers introduce a patient into the pre-triage access of the emergency department of the Cardarelli hospital in Naples
A patient in a medical bed will be admitted to the pre-triage access of the emergency department of the Cardarelli hospital in Naples on Thursday.
Further south, on the island of Sicily, the mayor of Palermo warned on Monday that his region faced an “inevitable massacre” as infections increased there.
“The north has always had a well-equipped health system spread throughout the territory. The situation there might not be optimal, but the south, in comparison, is a wasteland, ”Carlo Palermo, director of the ANAAO-ASSOMED doctors union, told Reuters.
The latest government figures for 2018 show this split, with an annual per capita healthcare expenditure of £ 1,844 in the northern Liguria region and £ 1,772 in neighboring Emilia-Romagna.
In Campania it was £ 1,524, the lowest in Italy, and £ 1,532 in nearby Calabria.
But it is not just a question of money. Poor management has also taken a heavy toll in the south.
The issue came into focus this month when Calabria’s health commissioner was interviewed on state television and was initially denied any responsibility for having to draw up a long-delayed emergency plan to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
To prove his point, Saverio Cotticelli, a retired general, presented the letter from the Ministry of Health that set out the guidelines. Still in front of the camera, little by little he realized the truth that he was responsible for the development of the plan.
He resigned the next day.
Calabria had 146 intensive care beds available at the beginning of the year. This number had risen to just 154 at the end of October, despite the Rome government ordering regions to double the capacity of emergency rooms during the summer.
When the national government divided the country into three levels this month to reflect the different health risks, it immediately put Calabria in the “red zone” and imposed a partial blockade.
Using an algorithm based on 21 indicators, Campania, to the general surprise, was placed in the lowest risk ‘yellow zone’.
The decision raised questions about whether the region was providing reliable data, and Rome’s Health Ministry has sent inspectors to review the situation.
Maurizio Cappiello, a doctor in the emergency services at Naples Cardarelli hospital and a member of the ANAAO-ASSOMED union, said the virus was spreading exponentially.
‘We have passed a critical level of alarm. The only way to manage the emergency in Campania is a total blockade, ”he said.
