Nicola Barile was already ready to go under the knife at the Core hospital in Reggio Emilia when he was told: «We can't operate, the staff is on strike. Come home."
The 44-year-old patient, already suffering from malignant renal carcinoma, had been hospitalized to undergo a delicate oncological surgery due to pulmonary lymphoma localized on the spleen and stomach.
«I entered the Core on October 19th for a radical nephrectomy - he told Qn-il Resto del Carlino - In practice they would have had to remove my kidney, adrenal gland and part of my urethra. The surgery was scheduled for the next day, at 1pm."
But the next day the surgery was cancelled. «Until 4pm - continued Barile - nothing happened, then the doctor and the surgeon came to me and told me that the operation could no longer be done. Reason? They would have been ready to operate on me, but in fact all the rest of the operating room staff were missing due to the strike."
«I appreciated the politeness with which they told me and I'm not even angry with those who went on strike, let's be clear - he adds - However, in general, how the thing was handled leaves me speechless. We had known about the strike for some time, why let me be hospitalized on that day? Or in any case since we are not talking about a dental abscess, at least they had told me clearly that there would be a risk that the operation could be cancelled. So mentally I could prepare myself. Luckily, I have a strong and patient character, many people suffer from severe psychological breakdowns after such a diagnosis. The first fundamental thing for a cancer patient is psychological health ."
The operation was postponed to Monday 30 October as announced by the Reggio Emilia Local Health Authority which «apologised for the inconvenience caused to the patient», explaining that «on strike days it is possible to limit only the staff necessary to guarantee the interventions urgent and non-deferrable emergencies, while scheduled surgery can be carried out proportionally to the proportion of staff not participating in the strike. Since the company is not allowed to ask its employees to communicate in advance their desire to join the strike or not and, consequently, it is not possible to know in advance the amount of scheduled surgical activity that may or may not be guaranteed on that day".
Therefore, «the patients scheduled for the afternoon of October 20th were informed about the impossibility of carrying out the operation only at the beginning of the afternoon shift, i.e. when it was possible to verify the level of support for the strike by the staff. Following the cancellation of the operation, taking into account that it was a Friday and that a union meeting was scheduled for the following Monday during the surgical activity time slot with the possibility of further inconvenience, it was decided to discharge the patient in order to reschedule him to short ."
(Unioneonline/D)
