There's been a power outage at the Santissima Trinità emergency room in Cagliari: no power, emergency lights on, and equipment running only on batteries. No CT scans; for that, you have to go to another ward. Since Monday evening, patients have been cared for only thanks to the hard work of doctors, nurses, and social workers.
The chain chaos
But among the skills , there's no one who can perform miracles. So, to deal with emergencies at the Santissima Trinità, we do what we can. For the rest, patients are diverted to the other two emergency rooms operating in the city, the Policlinico and the Brotzu, where, from the early hours of the day, an overflow has been recorded, putting even those facilities under strain, under pressure even without the blackout. More patients means more beds to allocate them to. The problem is, there aren't any. The result: suffering and waiting times that are indefinable.
The primary school
"We are doctors, we can examine patients, we can provide treatment. But the diagnosis is clearly not supported by technology, or at the very least, greatly delayed," explains Anna Laura Alimonda, head of the emergency department at Santissima. "Let's just say we're working in a situation of great hardship, but we always try to provide answers, to the extent possible."
The trade unionist
Paolo Cugliara, provincial secretary of FIALS, is more harsh on the matter. He knows every inch of the Cagliari hospital and, while he doesn't experience it firsthand, receives detailed information from workers: "This blackout has been going on for a long time, but power outages in the emergency room are worryingly frequent. During the night, patients were transferred, in the cold, to the Radiology ward for diagnostic tests. This is unacceptable," Cugliara continues, "just as it's unthinkable to burden staff with enormous risks due to the inefficiency of systems over which no one intervenes. Local Health Authority 8 has been without a general manager for some time. The blackout is one of the consequences of a total lack of management. And where is the health councilor? Todde, where is she?"
Meanwhile, the patients' relatives are exasperated: the testimonies in Teresa Piredda's video.