Volunteer doctors for emergencies, but bureaucracy says no

The grief over the loss of Maddalena Carta , the doctor who died in the line of duty at 38 , lingers. Just weeks after her tragedy, which shocked Italy, Dorgali and Cala Gonone will have new doctors sent by the Nuoro Local Health Authority.

A temporary solution to fill gaps in basic care , which will now be provided by Ascot shifts. Several doctors will be able to provide care to a community of 8,500 residents (not including the large number of tourists), who for the last ten days has been cared for by just one doctor, Mario Fronteddu. He is the only one left on the field, along with pediatrician Gavina Soletta and a young man in the Ascot clinic, because his other two colleagues are out of work due to illness.

In this emergency situation , the generosity of three general practitioners from Ogliastra, ready to lend a hand on weekends as volunteers, was not enough . They would have worked for the residents of Dorgali and Cala Gonone on Friday afternoons and Saturdays, the days they were free from their respective clinic duties . "I want to publicly thank them for making themselves available to the community. It was a gesture that truly moved me," says Mayor Angela Testone , who bitterly adds, "It would have been of enormous help, but formal bureaucratic and administrative issues prevented it. Those working on a volunteer basis would not have been able to write prescriptions." Thus, the good nature of those three doctors remained in their commendable intentions, but without practical results because the bureaucratic complexity does not allow for volunteer work, even in complicated situations such as that following the painful loss of Maddalena Carta.