Patients in the corridors. Not even the beds are enough anymore. And those who are sick are "hospitalized" in makeshift beds. The situation at the Brotzu hospital in Cagliari is explosive. Those who pay the consequences are the sick, who arrive in continuous waves, but also the healthcare personnel (doctors, nurses and Oss) forced to deal with work rhythms and pressures that have become unsustainable.
For this reason, the general director of Arnas, Agnese Foddis, wrote a letter (yet another) to the regional health councilor Armando Bartolazzi. The manager describes the critical issues. And announces a move that she would not have wanted to adopt: she will recall to her hospital all the doctors who, on the basis of agreements, work in the health facilities managed by other ASL. A "migration" that was necessary to plug the gaps in the Sardinian health system. But the blanket is short and Brotzu is about to collapse.
Foddis brings to Bartolazzi's attention «the serious situation in which Arnas G. Brotzu finds itself: the Company continues to manage, in total solitude, the risky consequences of the chronic lack of adequate assistance in the territory».
A condition known to all, «which daily reverberates on Arnas, forced to cope with an abnormal workload, clearly disproportionate to the medical and nursing staff who work there, to which is added the lack of beds as well as physical beds, also in this case not congruent with the constant increase in the flow of patients who ask for assistance at San Michele».
The description of the disaster is clear. This state of affairs has consequences: "The criticality, evidently, puts the quality of care at risk and increases the exposure to medical-legal risks for healthcare personnel, forced to provide care in increasingly precarious working conditions. We have repeatedly urged the department," continues the manager, "to set up thematic technical tables in order to address, in a coordinated and systematic way, the island's healthcare reality. We believe that a dialogue between all the actors involved is essential to find effective and timely solutions."
But it is precisely the lack of involvement of the local health authorities in the search for a shared path " that has contributed to making the situation" of Brotzu no longer sustainable.
And here is the announcement: "It should be noted that our professionals, from all specialist branches, have long been available to provide their services externally (despite the critical issues in our departments), through agreements stipulated with the Health Authorities, even those further away such as Lanusei and Nuoro. But the critical issues are now such," Foddis emphasizes, "that we are forced, against our will, to seriously evaluate the decision to suspend the activities of Arnas doctors at the local Authorities, in order to lighten the workload of the San Michele professionals. This is a forced choice, which we will be forced to implement if timely decisions are not taken."
The appeal to Bartolazzi is: start " the now indispensable collaboration between companies, each of which with its own resources, few or many as they may be, in order to alleviate the no longer sustainable burden that weighs on Brotzu, so as to favor a fair redistribution of services and, above all, in order to guarantee better assistance to patients".