The waits in the emergency rooms of Cagliari are interminable : they can even last 20 hours , as in the case of an 80-year-old at Santissima Trinità, only to end up with "discharge without diagnosis and without treatment, only further tests, which we will have to do in private".

And another woman, last Friday, was left waiting for thirteen hours.

«We continue to report the problems, but nothing ever changes», underlines Giorgio Pia, retired former head of the emergency room and emergency medicine of the Santissima Trinità, and now president of the Patient Tribunal. «There are endless queues, the 118 rescuers blocked for hours waiting for the patient to be taken care of . And then doctors, nurses and health workers forced to work exhausting shifts to deal with the sacrosanct urgencies of users. Problems that are linked to the absence of local medicine."

At Santissima Trinità there are only two doctors (there should be at least one more), the Obi (Intensive Brief Observation) area is being restyled and there are only three medical centers available. Not only that, the CT scan is still out of order and for the tests it is necessary to be transferred to the Radiology department, aboard an ambulance in the hospital square, in impressive times.

«The system risks collapse – warns Pia -, and the workload for operators increases the probability of human error».

Cristina Cossu