Three blitzes in a row. In the evening, but also at night: emergency rooms at Brotzu, at the Santissima Trinità and at the Policlinico. These are the structures in Cagliari where, between Tuesday and yesterday, the regional health councilor Carlo Doria showed up without warning. Those in the capital are only the last stages of a tour that is touching all the hospitals in Sardinia: "I started touring about a month ago, showing up in the time slots which are generally the most problematic", explains the exponent of the council Solinas . All the directors-general were given a directive: ' I have forbidden the keeping of patients in the corridors. We are not in Kosovo, the sick cannot be kept crowded together as happened there during the war» , explains Doria.

Someone, stretcher-bound, found him at Is Mirrionis on Wednesday night: «There were eight of them. And I discovered that in the emergency room they had a free short-term intensive observation area: at least four could be accommodated there". Except that a nurse was missing to follow them: "I think it's unacceptable", says the commissioner, "that's why I called the manager Marcello Tidore, who found that nurse". Emergency buffered, but the goal is to find definitive solutions.

Doria points out that, despite the continuous news reports coming from Cagliari hospitals, the most critical situations are recorded elsewhere: "I find it unpleasant to make a ranking, but I have found greater problems in Sassari, Nuoro, Carbonia and Oristano". Where it is necessary "I have also asked for structural interventions to give the best possible service to those who arrive in the emergency rooms, which if they are there means they are not well".

In some structures, according to the commissioner, «it is sufficient to knock down two partitions to create open spaces where up to 15 patients can be assisted in a dignified way, also thanks to telemedicine. In the emergency room used as closets, deposits and kitchenettes? They move to the basement and those square meters must be dedicated to assisting the sick".

The ASL of Gallura, on the advice of the commissioner, has already purchased special armchairs: «All healthcare companies must be equipped with them: they can buy them from whoever they want, but the important thing is that they can be transformed into beds, when necessary. Not all patients necessarily have to lie down."

Another problem for emergency rooms is inappropriate access: green or white codes that shouldn't even reach hospitals. They help to lengthen the waits. And they generate situations such as that of the 93-year-old man from the province of Cagliari, covered in sores and suffering from various pathologies, who remained in an ambulance for over 9 hours waiting to be visited. For this, for Doria, «it is necessary to run, as I am trying to do, to strengthen local medicine, through the community houses that have to take care of the chronic. But also by strengthening integrated home assistance and the emergency medical service: I am ready to recognize economic incentives to those who agree to operate in disadvantaged areas. The opposition says no, but it is normal that if we offer just 25 euros gross, like years ago, the doctor prefers to stay with his family and at home». For Doria «it is the territory that has to absorb the chronically ill. The emergency room is the door to the hospital. And here the patients cannot be treated as if they were in a cattle car. There are organizational problems, we are working to resolve them».

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