At Rome's Ciampino airport, a Falcon 900 , operated by the 31st Wing of the Air Force, is always ready for take-off .
An aircraft capable of quickly reaching Sardinia to load newborns and children in imminent danger of life due to serious pathologies and to transport them, always in the shortest possible time, to hospitals with highly specialized pediatric departments capable of ensuring they receive the necessary care , like the Bambin Gesù of Rome or the Gaslini of Genoa. And every year dozens of urgent transports are carried out.
A diligent and meritorious service, motivated however by the lack of PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) beds on the island, pediatric intensive care units specialized in the care of newborns, children, adolescents and young adults in critical conditions between the ages of 0 and 21 years.
A deficiency that affects all Italian regions, the subject of a study just published in the authoritative medical journal "The Lancet" , which indicates the situation in Sardinia as emblematic of the lack of availability of PICU beds in our country.
The study was carried out by Carmelo Mingardi (Department of Anesthesiology, Policlinico San Marco, University of Catania), Giorgio Conti (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Gemelli di Roma), Andrea Moscatelli (Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Giannina Gaslini Institute of Genoa), Simonetta Tesoro and Leonardo Bussolin (Italian Society of Pediatric and Neonatal Anesthesia and Intensive Care).
The objective, as mentioned, is "to highlight the large shortage of beds in pediatric intensive care units (PICU) in Italy".
«In our country - explain the authors - the number of PICU beds is only 273 for 9,788,622 patients aged between 1 and 18 years; this number gives a ratio of one PICU bed per 35,856 patients, which is far from the recommended standard."
And they underline: even if it is not the only region with zero PICU places, «the case of Sardinia illustrates this problem well. Despite its geographical isolation from the rest of the Italian peninsula, the region does not have a single PICU bed. This absence of adequate pediatric intensive care services is concerning, especially considering the potential difficulties in transferring seriously ill children to PICUs located in the rest of the country."
Returning to the numbers, if in our country there is one PICU bed for every 35,856 patients, according to European standards there should be one PICU bed for every 20,000-30,000 children.
For this reason, the authors conclude, illustrating a series of possible solutions (starting, naturally, with the increase in the number of PICU beds and their more strategic geographical distribution), «we should guarantee that every child with a serious medical problem can benefit from the highest quality of care, regardless of the geographical location in which you live."