Ambulances and their crews "hostage" of hospitals, in Sardinia there is a risk of paralysis of the emergency-urgency system: «Even serious patients are without a guarantee of help». The alarm does not come from a union, an association or a rescuer exasperated by the long hours of waiting in the squares of health facilities across the island. A widespread and dangerous (for public health) situation is reported by Areus, the regional company that deals with the 118 system, crucial for the survival of many Sardinians.
The general director Simonetta Cinzia Bettelini wrote to the regional health councilor, Carlo Doria, and to all the managers of the healthcare companies. Because the situation is critical and immediate interventions are necessary.
«The constant increase in the number of requests for help, +35% recorded in these holidays due at least in part to the expected Covid-19 and flu epidemic», writes the company, «is causing repercussions on the entire regional network. The time spent by ambulances and crews in hospitals is excessive. There is a risk of paralysis of the pre-hospital emergency-urgency service."
The consequence: lengthening of waiting times for the citizen's emergency response due to the unavailability of the 118 vehicles blocked for hours in the emergency room of the main hospitals. In short: anyone who gets hurt, or needs help, has no guarantee of an immediate response.
«While we understand that the current impact is not only on 118, but on the entire regional health emergency system», explains Areus, «the increase in the workload for the operators of the operations centers of Cagliari and Sassari and, above all , of emergency vehicles in the regional territory, not only in Southern Sardinia but also in the Sassari area, must be immediately supported by quicker acceptance by hospitals".
There is dialogue between operations centers and facilities with the greatest difficulties, but in the 118 command rooms "unfortunately, responses are not always decisive".
It therefore happens that "even pathologies with a code of greater severity and rapidly evolving are currently without rapid assistance because the vehicles of the reference area are held up at various hospitals with excessive times". A drama.
When the situation is particularly serious, the 118 operations centers try to "strengthen" the network with additional basic means but it is never possible to completely recover the damage, also due to the difficulty that third sector bodies have in covering additional ambulance shifts .
Areus, through Bettelini, appeals to the directors of healthcare companies «to make it more fluid to take care of the patient who arrives at the hospital with 118 (in any case less than a third of the total citizens who arrive in the emergency room) so to free the ambulances as soon as possible and make vehicles and crews available again for primary relief, avoiding emptying the territory on New Year's Eve where a large influx is expected in the cities hosting the New Year's Eve concerts".
