Cagliari emergency room chaos, ambulances queued for hours: "It's a chronic problem"

In Sassari, an ambulance is freed in 20 minutes. In Cagliari, 140 are needed : seven times as many. And this is an average: there are waits that exceed 10 hours. Extreme cases, but increasingly frequent. In the emergency rooms of the capital, the now ordinary scene is the following: lines of 118 vehicles blocked by the dozens, volunteers forced to wait for the return of the stretchers, patients who once inside cannot be admitted to the ward because there are no beds , hospital staff who do somersaults but can't take it anymore. If it doesn't happen at Brotzu, the problem arises at the Policlinico and at Santissima Trinità . Or vice versa.

"It is not normal that we have become accustomed to this increasingly frequent scenario: it has been like this since 2019. It is no longer an emergency, it is a chronic problem ": for this reason the director of the 118 operations center in Cagliari managed by Areus, Daniele Barillari, has called a meeting - very operational - with all the directors of the emergency rooms in southern Sardinia . "We have hit rock bottom and it is no longer time for exchanging accusations between entities: we must look each other in the face, to all self-criticize and collaborate, because there is room for intervention to improve the situation", he assures. The appointment is for March 20, to reconcile everyone's needs. In the meantime, immediate strategies are being developed.