Once the emergency after the blackout is over, at Brotzu it's time to settle scores. It has the form of a letter but the substance of a torpedo - the objective is "politics" - the letter that all the department directors of Arnas, i.e. those who "keep things going", sent today to the general director Agnese Foddis and to the two directors, health and administrative. The first, Raimondo Pinna, had sent a communication on Friday which almost defined them as "hidden" during the difficult hours of hospital closure (and even after). The document issued today by the medical leaders is a harsh stance. Towards Pinna, but also to those who, representing the regional council, took the conductor's baton into their hands while San Michele was without light: Luca Caschili, Alessandra Todde's right-hand man.
The letter
The document initially recalls the letter sent by Foddis to the Region in recent weeks, when the beds at Brotzu ran out. He was referring to the «seriously critical situation whose peak was recorded on the night between 13 and 14 July, when the hyper influx of every type of pathology and emergency was managed thanks to the dedication of the healthcare staff in their entirety». Even then it would have been necessary, "an immediate and appropriate collegial study aimed at a new organizational structure consistent with the changed conditions of the network". Meeting that didn't happen.
«It appears completely evident», the doctors continue, «that this organizational problem involves the level of politics which Arnas has always been able to count on in the globality and collegiality of the healthcare component in the various specialties» which determine «the competence of the professionals who operate, the qualification of hospital of national importance". As if to say: if Brotzu works it's thanks to us, not thanks to politics.
Subsequently, the document becomes more weighty: «The lack of involvement of the department directors was even more evident on the occasion of the recent failure of the San Michele power plant (20-21 July) when the serious condition became evident to most risk to which a large segment of the population belonging to the Arnas area of competence was exposed without the operational core or a crisis unit extended to all responsible clinicians having had the opportunity to offer their expertise in support of the company management ». It emerges that those in charge of the hospital facilities did not know what was really happening and how serious the problem was that led to the closure of Brotzu. «The hospital has known and observed in this case, through the press and television», we read again, «the intervention of politics which did not take care to verify, on the occasion, that the operational component really responsible by law had been adequately and promptly involved in the management of a dramatic situation". A "condition of uncertainty" which has "generated insecurity and concern among staff, dulling the figure and role of the institution". For this reason, the department directors, nine in total, ask for an urgent meeting with the hospital's top management, to which they also invite the department and the mayor of Cagliari, but also those who «in the events of 20 and 21 July replaced the operational clinical component without providing clear answers and detailed intervention protocols, further exposing healthcare workers to very serious risks in protecting the health of Sardinian citizens".
The health director's email
On July 26, all the signatories of today's letter received an email. The health director Raimondo Pinna expressed «deep regret for how, on the occasion of the event known to all as the electricity blackout , there was no concrete act of availability from you, department directors, for collaboration with the undersigned», that is, with him, who instead "immediately arrived at the hospital". Pinna says that this behavior continued in the following days.