«Undeferrable urgency, 15 minutes as maximum waiting time for treatment»: this, according to the law, should happen with patients who, due to symptoms and conditions, are classified with an orange code in the emergency room.
When it is not even 6pm, there are 5pm of those seeking assistance in these conditions at the Santissima Trinità in Cagliari: 13 are visiting, 4 are waiting. For well over 15 minutes. The fault is not with those who work in the hospital: it is the Sardinian emergency system that has collapsed. And on this Friday in July, yet another nightmare is being experienced in the hospitals of the capital. Also contributing to this is the strike called by the Brotzu nurses belonging to Nursing Up, who are protesting unsustainable work rates also due to the lack of social and health workers in the departments. And for two days they decided to abstain from service.
The dramatic result is all in the numbers. To the 17 "orange" ones of Is Mirrionis add the 11 of the Brotzu and the 9 of the Policlinico. Just today the alarm from the NurSind union came from Duilio Casula: some patients were kept on stretchers for up to 10 days in the emergency room, because there was no more room in the departments.
Then there are the red codes, who arrive and are immediately taken care of. But also the less serious cases, which contribute - despite themselves - to inflating the access data in hospital facilities. Seventeen blue codes waiting at Santissima Trinità, 10 at Brotzu and 13 at the Polyclinic. Then there are a few dozen green and white ones, distributed among the various garrisons.
So everyone waits. The sick do it, but also the 118 operators: there are about ten ambulances stopped in the square in Via Is Mirrionis. They can't unpack the patients because there's no room inside. And therefore they cannot even intervene in case of other emergencies. Thus the area remains unprotected: following a 118 call from Capoterra, an ambulance from Quartu intervened. A distance incompatible with survival if the case is in imminent danger of life.
The position of the university hospital company also comes on the NurSind complaint: «It is undeniable and proven by the numbers that the staff of the emergency room and of all the departments of the Aou were called to an absolutely extraordinary commitment in the difficult closing days of the Brotzu".
The unavailability of the most important hospital in Sardinia «on the healthcare scene in southern Sardinia could not fail to have consequences on the Boarding phenomenon, which is common to all emergency rooms, not only in Sardinia but also on the peninsula and which recognizes complex and not an easy solution in the context of the possible reception dictated by the number of available beds".
The Cagliari AOU «responded promptly to the emergency situation through the involvement of the competent services, mobilizing all available resources, with the recall of available personnel and with the movement of operators from the inpatient departments, who were also busy with high workloads. work, towards the emergency room, seeking the difficult balance between the greater commitment required and the need for proper rest. The Company Management recognizes the commitment made during these tiring days by its medical operators, nurses and OSS and is grateful to them for the self-sacrifice shown in the service of the patients".
Enrico Fresu
