Take a step forward if you volunteer… Like the eroiken doktoren that Bonvi drew, like Alpine soldiers on the Russian front with cardboard soles, in hospitals they are being recruited again. On Thursday morning, at Sant’Orsola in Bologna, the health management calls the heads of many departments and issues the order: serve urgently doctors who go to help in the Covid emergency. Otorino, ophthalmologists, oncologists, any type of doctor. A couple of hours, and in the wards the counting and fear begin: a list of movables is made, those who are elderly or have families, or who have already fallen ill in the first wave, are skimmed. Tot chosen, tot places: who goes there? Someone who would refuse, others who would like to be replaced. Even the oldest and most impartial of selection criteria is proposed – the draw! -, but in the end, ok, here’s the decision: off to the young (once in a while …) and possibly without offspring. White coats, tired coats. In March, doctors juggled teasing on their cell phones about colleagues hired by force in intensive care (if you don’t want an orthopedist to cure your pneumonia, stay home!) And you still wanted to joke. Then it really happened.
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The orthopedists went to intensive care, the trainees have placed them where needed. Was eight months enough to prevent it from happening again? No. In Veneto, they can be seen veterinarians who do swabs. At the Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia, a few days ago, they organized themselves last minute accelerated courses to teach dermatologists, hematologists, nephrologists what to do once placed in the Covid wards. They gave us a short training to explain how a respirator works and then off, everyone inside – says one of them -. But couldn’t we have thought about it before? We have never done these things, and a risk for the patient as for us. An oncologist who had never treated infectives found herself in the emergency room at night, alone, managing twenty-three Covid patients. One can do everything, for heaven’s sake. But with what experience? Unlike last spring, this time the heroes got really tired: eighteen doctors of various specialties sent on 29 October a letter of protest to the leaders of the Lombard health system to say that no, in these conditions it is madness to send those who do not have the adequate preparation or the necessary insurance to the Covid departments. Same discontent in Milan, Varese, Monza.
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We reserve the right to confirm our membership or not on guard duty, we read in the doctors’ document, because in this way seriously ill patients are subjected to an additional risk and the policies, moreover, in the event of gross negligence do not cover these extraneous specialists. Even the medical union Anaao-Assomed has moved with a formal warning to the ASL: The calls of doctors of other specialties are peremptory – says the regional secretary, Stefano Magnone – and to counter them, we are also ready for a criminal complaint. Ours is not a refusal to treat patients. But for the wave of March the complaints have already flowed. And when a magistrate opens a file, not that he summons the commissioner Gallera: he calls the doctor.
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The high personal risk: two Lombard lawyers, Luigi Fornari and Cristina Poma, for weeks have been dealing with an increasing number of criminal and civil cases, involving both infected hospital doctors and those accused of negligence by patients. unfortunately it is foreseeable that these cases will increase with the second wave – explain the lawyers -. And now we add the presence in the ward of less specialized personnel, to face such a complex pathology. For these doctors, the danger of getting infected increases. And the legal risks are growing. An example is a Lombard white coat, assisted by two lawyers, sent to the trench of the virus despite having a lung half removed for a tumor: he got sick and now, angry and depressed, he says he was treated badly, they asked me for a hand and I gave it because it is my job, but we must be protected from this physical and emotional stress. I understand the first emergency, in the spring. But one cannot get to this second wave so unprepared, calling to battle doctors who have never dealt with infectives. Are there any answers? One: a letter from the president of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, who yesterday wrote to the furious doctors of San Matteo. To appease them, he thanked them for their efforts, mindful of the great losses suffered. And asked them to lay down their weapons, appealing to continue the struggle: Today more than yesterday we are in your hands. Explanations on delays? None. Just a quote from Pope Francis: we need you, says the governor, silent artisans of the culture of proximity and tenderness …
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November 7, 2020 (change November 7, 2020 | 07:13)
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