The last one of 2023 left on December 30: a 7-day-old newborn with serious heart problems was urgently transferred from the Duilio Casula Polyclinic in Cagliari to the specialized hospital of San Donato Milanese, aboard a Falcon 50 of the Air Force. In one year, it was patient number 26 (cost: 17,500 euros for each trip), in danger of life, who left for the Peninsula on an urgent military flight. Those transported by the pilots of the 31st Wing were not all children. But almost everyone does.
Then there are the Areus numbers. From January 1st to November 30th (the December data is missing) the air ambulance carried out 28 extra-region flights to transfer small and very young Sardinians who were between 2 months and 16 years old (average age: 5 years) and needed care that in the Island they could not receive. Overall, about one Flight of Hope per week.
The problem, or at least one of the biggest: there are no pediatric intensive care beds on the island. A situation reported by eminent specialists in the sector also in the scientific journal The Lancet.
But something could change: work is underway at Brotzu to set up a department. First a temporary structure, within the year. Then a complex structure, dedicated to the intensive care of children.
The details in Enrico Fresu's article on L'Unione Sarda on newsstands and on the app
abbonati.unionesarda.it/Edicola