Major works at Arnas Brotzu, the two hospitals that are part of it become construction sites, and no official and/or written communication has been made to the unions and the thousands of health workers who every day have to guarantee care to patients arriving there from all over Sardinia.
The news is that the Emergency Room will also be renovated , in compliance with the anti-Covid provisions of 2020. It will start in December and, on paper, will end in a year and a half. In short, at a time when the burning issue of the Businco operating rooms that must close and the transfer of the departments and surgical interventions to San Michele is at stake, when work will soon begin in Digestive Endoscopy and Hemodynamics, when - says a nurse - the bodies leave the maintenance service because there is another construction site in the mortuary's appurtenances, while the situation is explosive and never before has there been such strong and widespread discontent among all employees, here is another "case" that will contribute to increasing tension, also because this operation at the Emergency Room - which has over 130 daily visits - is a "structural, plant and technological adaptation to the anti-contagion provisions", that is, it takes off with a four-year delay, with the pandemic having thank God been archived for a while.
The green light
"The works will begin in early December and will last 18 months - the Company informs - the amount (PNRR funds) is 5 million 800 thousand euros. They consist of the renovation of areas related to the Emergency Department of San Michele: Obi, Digestive Endoscopy, plasmapheresis, rooms of the old Emergency Room. For now - they specify - no moves or transfers are planned".
The go-ahead was given with two resolutions on October 31st signed by the general director Agnese Foddis and the health director Raimondo Pinna and comes after a very long bureaucratic process that starts from a regulation of the Region of July 2020 that defines a plan for the reorganization of the hospital network and the restructuring of the Emergency Room with the identification of separate areas of stay for suspected Covid-19 or potentially contagious patients, separation of routes, etc.
The letter
Usb Sanità wrote to Councilor Bartolazzi, to the Regional Council's Health Commission, to the prefect, to the mayor and to the top management of Arnas to denounce once again "the disorganization" of the largest Company on the Island. Gianfranco Angioni emphasizes that "a few days after the announced start of the first works at Businco, we learn that another Pnrr financing of approximately 9 million euros has reached the approval phase of the executive project. We wonder what the start date is, and what measures have been put in place for the possible suspension of healthcare activities". Furthermore, "we are not at ease with the healthcare and organizational management that will have to be implemented in an already complicated moment, with a serious shortage of personnel and the hospital filled to the brim. Now the Pnrr works are about to begin all together, with overlaps that are causing concern not only among healthcare workers and all personnel, but also for the entire emergency area of Southern Sardinia, already struggling".
The prospects
Francesco Agus, the leader of the Progressisti group, intervenes: «If it weren't a matter of public health, the grotesque aspects of the story would be laughable. The most important hospital in Sardinia is renovating the emergency room to adapt it to anti-Covid regulations. As if a parachute opened an hour after falling. On the basis of which plans are construction sites being started that will inevitably affect patient care and the working conditions of healthcare workers? The situation is worrying due to the lack of clarity: entire surgical departments are being moved without a plan, operating rooms are being closed without a backup plan. At this point, the department cannot remain passive: clear and urgent directives are needed. We cannot have a bureaucratic and inert attitude in the face of actions that will have an impact on the entire region. Some works, above all the ill-advised renovation of the Businco operating rooms, risk causing more harm than good, and it would be necessary to be firm in blocking them while there is still time».
Cristina Cossu
