Two years later, the irony was banning hospitals

Covid permanent wards, with nearly 200 ‘burned’ places All over Friuli. Entire sections of hospitals are devoted to an epidemic that most experts now consider to be endemic. This is almost normal. Spaces are always closed, with dedicated staff drained from other important activities of all medical centers in Friuli Venezia Giulia who can only take care of infected patients during a day. And all this because in Rome, in the Ministry of Health, there is no longer any talk of such a change in the rules that could solve the situation in a few hours.

alarm clock

“Inevitably – the regional vice president and health advisor, Riccardo Ricciardi spread his arms – the designated coronavirus zones must be preserved.” At the moment in Friuli Venezia Giulia there are the largest hospitals: Pordenone, Udine, Gorizia and Trieste. Each major medical center is forced to maintain a ward designated only for swab-tested patients, regardless of the other illnesses they often suffer from. And the number of hospital admissions did not collapse this time as last spring, that is, the years 2020 and 2021. For two months, that is, since the beginning of March, the situation has always been the same: between 150 and 160 non-risk patients are hosted from Covid medical areas. In fact, the problem is not related to intensive care, which now practically does not exceed ten units, or the medical areas where people without severe symptoms are housed. However, in recent years, there have also been 20-30 Covid patients in hospitals, especially in the summer, with only one regional center (in Trieste) of the epidemic. This fact gave relief to employees and to the entire health system. But getting into the panorama of the Omicron variant and its more contagious “cousins” has changed the picture, with infections always present on average even if they have few implications from a clinical point of view. However, more infection also means more positive swabs within the hospitals themselves, possibly referring to patients who do not have symptoms of Covid but have only been found to be infected.

paradox

The question is exactly that, and Riccardi himself explains it very well: “At this moment – he reveals – in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, there are basically patients who have tested positive for Covid but who have little or nothing to do with this epidemic. They go to the hospital because they have to undergo operations or Other treatments and they find out that they have the virus because they take the usual swab.” And herein lies the problem. Several times, from Friuli Venezia Giulia, the urgent need has arrived to change the rules and offer hospital treatment in the Covid area only to patients already affected by the disease, that is, with the classic symptoms known for two years, To the government’s ear. Others, the only positive people, could continue their way to the hospital normally, perhaps only with some extra caution. This pressure came not only from politics, but also from the most important infectious disease specialists who run hospital infectious disease facilities in the The region. A topic that seems to have gone awry and is no longer being talked about even in government rooms. “We no longer have any news of changes looming,” Ricciardi emphasized. Regional is losing operators, as they will only have to assign them to Covid departments.