10.00 pm on any day. Summer or winter makes no difference. Carloforte, the extreme periphery of public health. Island in the island. The incident is a red-code one. Ferries too slow and always far away. We need the helicopter rescue, the indispensable one to save life. The intervention is cataloged among those "Employee Time". Translated it means that the time factor is the decisive element for the quality and outcome of care, if not the "life-saving" factor in the presence of conditions with a high risk of mortality. The closest helicopter is in Cagliari. The air rescue contract, however, provides that that vehicle can fly only in the time slot delimited by sunrise and sunset. Nothing, the only helicopter enabled for night flights to reach Carloforte is based in none other than Olbia, Costa Smeralda airport.
Odyssey Carloforte
The air line marks the beauty of 224 km between the Gallura capital and the Island of San Pietro. It takes no less than an hour from departure to arrival in southern Sardinia. Pretending that the helicopter can easily land in Gianni Morandi's hermitage, it will take another 30 minutes from Carloforte to the Brotzu garrison in Cagliari, the only emergency hospital with a night landing. The time factor marks the downfall. An hour and a half is considered out of any emergency timing, let alone in an intervention where the patient's salvation derives entirely from the speed of intervention.
La Maddalena, the ordeal
Let's assume the opposite side. 10.00 pm, midsummer day, La Maddalena archipelago. Similar intervention. The operational base for the night flight is always and only that of Olbia. Between the activation and arrival times we can assume, according to the rosiest forecasts, 15 minutes to land on the island. Given that the only two centers where one can intervene for certain emergency pathologies are located one in Cagliari and one in Sassari, there are only two aid hypotheses. The patient, however, at that time cannot reach Sassari by helicopter, because, after 3 years from the activation of the service, that hospital unit still does not have a base for night landing. From La Maddalena, therefore, he must go to Alghero, to the airport. From there, an ambulance will pick him up from the plane and along the road, only for a part with four lanes, he will be able to arrive, after over an hour and 15/30 minutes. In this case too, times are beyond all grace of God. The hypothesis remains for departure for Cagliari. Again another 70/75 minutes to cross the whole of Sardinia. It is the paradox of the most expensive service: the night service.
