Sara and that hell in the ward

Round face, cheerful look under the lenses of the glasses, wide smile: Sara Pedri is 31 years old and is a gynecologist. She was born in Forlì and graduated in Medicine and then specialized at the University of Catanzaro. She has a boyfriend, Guglielmo, who works in Cosenza: they talk to each other on the phone every night, before going to sleep. In November 2020 Sara found work in the Cles hospital, a town with just over seven thousand inhabitants in the province of Trento, and rented an apartment to live alone. Four days before taking up service, however, something new was communicated to her: she was assigned to the hospital of Trento, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics of Santa Chiara.

It is the last months of 2020 and the whole world is grappling with the upswing of the pandemic curve and new restrictions are being discussed that will soon become reality.

Sara starts working and immediately finds herself faced with a particularly difficult situation: the anxiety due to the climate in the ward is such as to make her lose many kilos in a very short time. The head physician reproaches her for the sudden weight loss, in reality the problem is him. The gynecologist confides in her sister and tells her how she is offended, humiliated, debased. In the hospital, increasingly heavy words are addressed to her that throw her into a state of prostration to the point that she can no longer even hold the scalpel in her hand.

He asks for and gets a period of sick leave: weight loss and work stress, the medical certificate is 15 days but he returns to the hospital after a week because he fears retaliation.

Who knows if she is aware of the legal action initiated by six of her colleagues (managers and midwives) who have turned to two lawyers to report demotion and bullying. In the department where Sara works, the situation seems to be unbearable from a human and professional point of view due to a modus operandi made up of mortifying harassment that has already caused the flight of 62 employees in the last six years.

Sara soon finds herself in severe distress. She tells her family everything that, seeing her particularly stressed, they advise her to go away.

At the beginning of March Sara resigns: she writes an email in which she addresses the primary defining him as an “enlightened sovereign”. The boyfriend knows everything: Sara is going through a very difficult period due to the stress related to work and it is "very strange for a woman full of life, always at three thousand", so she says. On March 3, like every night, he calls her and Sara explains how relieved she feels. With the resignation, a burden has been removed.

Her sister Manuela knows everything too, and that same evening she receives a phone call from Sara: she also tells her that she has resigned.

Her sister and boyfriend are the last people to talk to Sara. From that moment the gynecologist disappears. Nobody knows anything about her anymore. His car was found the next day, March 4, near a bridge over the Noce stream, in the province of Trento. His cell phone is in the car. No trace of Sara. Everything points to suicide.

The car's GPS indicates that Sara was in that area only once, in January: she went with a person who was showing her around the area.

Research begins, especially in the waters of Lake Santa Giustina where the Noce stream flows. Meanwhile, the story related to the hospital where the gynecologist works is uncovered. Her sister, mother and boyfriend report to the investigators and speak publicly about the difficulties that led to her discharge. At home the notes are found where Sara writes everything that happens to her.

The case becomes national.

And nobody is silent anymore. A colleague of Sara's talking about herself on TV says these words: “In order not to go there, I would have preferred to have an accident. I never wanted to kill myself, but I swear to God that every time I went to work I prayed to God to crash, break my legs, be paralyzed, and stay home forever. They make you work for three, they kill you with work ”.

A criminal investigation starts, the judiciary analyzes the data contained in the gynecologist's mobile phone, it must be understood even if it is true that Sara was slapped on the hands while holding a scalpel and then badly removed from the operating room.

Meanwhile, the health care company launches an internal investigation that collects the testimonies of one hundred and ten people and makes an analysis of the shifts and the verification of emails and documents. During the hearings, one person says: “Conduct based on often oppressive attitudes has created deep suffering in me, as in so many others. There were also insults and threats. I heard a nurse say: I will ruin you ”.

A doctor reports to the commission that for years there has been a climate of suffering linked to authoritarian methods, attitudes that have gone sour along with exhausting shifts, outbursts of anger, humiliations. Some people - he says - have been targeted and a demotion has also followed.

At the center of it all are the behavior of the head physician, who has been working in that hospital for 11 years, and of a manager.

The Trentino health care company finds confirmation of the statements of numerous witnesses and speaks of "objective facts, a critical ward situation, a punitive system". Thus disposes the immediate transfer of head and manager "in order", reads the provision, "to protect the serenity of the patients, of the operators involved, and to safeguard the proper functioning of the department".

A third investigation is opened by the Medical Association.

it is an earthquake that leads to the resignation of the medical director, that is the one who renewed the position of the primary until 2025 when the case was breaking out.

The transferred head physician, however, does not take up service in the new location but immediately goes on vacation, and this, according to Sara's sister, is a way to oppose the decision of the internal commission.

Meanwhile, the mother defends her daughter's memory in the weekly Giallo. “I write because I can no longer remain silent in the face of an attempt to offer a distorted and untrue image of my daughter. Sara is not fragile and her story is a clear demonstration of this. Pray that his sacrifice is not in vain and that disrespect may be removed forever from the human mind and conscience. The truth about my daughter must be affirmed ”.

The general manager of the health care company says that "in recent years objective reports had never been recorded, elements that have now emerged with the hearings of the commission". The commitment is to "monitor not only the reports made but also those not yet made objectively".

Meanwhile Sara is not found.

The searches in the lake continue, for now without results.