A 68-year-old woman from Sassari and her 40-year-old daughter, Federica Cossu, have been stranded in Sardinia for over three months. A wall of bureaucracy and overcrowded Sardinian hospitals have prevented them from returning to the island since the 68-year-old, on vacation, suffered two intestinal perforations and an abscess in the space of three weeks.

"After the surgeries, the doctors gave her up for dead," Federica recalls. But from that intensive care unit, the ominous predictions were contradicted because the patient, despite an oncological condition, recovered in just over a month.

A mirage

It's not, however, a happy ending: "I asked Niguarda Hospital in Milan to admit my mother." It's July, and the negative response arrives after two weeks. The destination becomes Sardinia. "On August 6th, I make a request to the Cagliari Polyclinic; on the 10th, they respond saying they'll check availability; on the 18th, they ask about my mother's medical condition so they can choose the most appropriate ward." And while during those two weeks, the 68-year-old, transferred to a general medicine ward, can be flown to Italy, on the 20th, yet another blow hits. "She had an infection with sepsis." The wait drags on, the window closes, only to reopen a few days later, but without any change in the story.

On August 31, the Polyclinic informed the mother and daughter that it was experiencing a serious bed shortage, thus causing the Sardinian health emergency to reverberate beyond the border.

Emanuele Floris

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