Ambulance stretchers "hostage" in emergency rooms? For Areus, the regional emergency-urgency company, it is just a way to cut the long waits for 118 operators.
The controversy has erupted in recent days. The operators' associations had signaled a directive which required the abandonment of stretchers inside hospitals.
An indication, that of Areus, issued in a complex context, especially in southern Sardinia: it happens that patients stay for hours outside the emergency rooms, on board ambulances. Once inside though, there are no beds available. Thus the sick remain lying on the supports that were used for transport.
Meanwhile, the volunteers are forced to wait for someone to find a place for their patients inside the hospital. And half a day can pass before they get back their stretcher.
The problem for those who work with 118 (now 112) is that safety is not guaranteed.
«The directives issued have the purpose of regulating a situation that has been developing in hospital structures for some time now», explain Areus, « our main mission is to provide the pre-hospital medical assistance service in an optimal way, in the shortest possible time, possibly without interruptions throughout the regional territory, avoiding situations of disservice caused, as in this case, by the long waiting times that the affiliated Third Sector Entities have to face for the return of aids, such as stretchers " .
The note from the regional agency goes on to explain that it is necessary to make sure "that once the patient is taken into charge by the hospital facilities, the institution that carried out the pre-hospital transport, if it does not return possession of the stretcher or after a suitable period of time, return to the headquarters, activate the reserve ambulance (which must already be set up as the main one) and return to full operation within 20 minutes, as required by the agreement".
The goal is to cut the times «in which the association's or cooperative's ambulance cannot respond to requests for help because it is forced to stop for long periods in hospital facilities awaiting the return of stretchers or other aids. These are situations that are certainly not attributable to them, but with times that sometimes extend even into the following day ».
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)