A video quickly went viral, shot with a mobile phone in front of the Villalongo medical guard in Matera, in which you can see a 90 year old elder who is treated with rudeness by two doctors of the medical guard. The man, according to what we learn, had turned to the hospital to have the prescription of some drugs related to chronic diseases but, following the directives imposed, the doctors had refused inviting him in brisk ways to contact his doctor the next day. . The man, evidently in difficulty, begins to cry and the person who is making the video intervenes; at that point the ninety-year-old is allowed to enter the premises of the medical guard.
The video sparked fierce controversy over the attitude with which the doctors have placed themselves towards the elderly. The Councilor for Health of Basilicata and the Order of Doctors intervened on the episode, but with conflicting positions. For the commissioner Rocco Luigi Leone, pediatrician, the two doctors have “probably forgotten the mission of this profession”. “I will strive – he wrote in a post – so that these subjects have the most severe punishment possible. I also ask for the intervention of the Medical Association to stigmatize and punish these behaviors that have nothing to do with our ethics”.
For the Order of Doctors of Basilicata, on the other hand, the episode is to be assessed taking into consideration the previous situation of the elderly. “Certainly the tone and attitude are questionable – says the provincial president, Severino Montemurro – but it is also true that the doctors were complying with specific health provisions that forbid doctors and the medical guard to prescribe prescriptions in case of chronic care. And despite this, the doctors in question met the gentleman’s request and nevertheless issued him the prescription, as well as in other antecedents “.
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