While all of Italy is now affected by containment measures, in hospitals in Lombardy the situation seems to be getting really complicated.
A few hours ago, only a quarter of the Italian population was placed in confinement in an attempt to stem the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus. But while the toll continues to rise (463 dead and more than 9,000 cases at the last census), it is now the whole peninsula that is concerned , according to a decree signed this Tuesday by the head of the Italian government Giuseppe Conte.
From this day forward, and until next April 3 (for the time being), all Italians will therefore have to "avoid traveling » , except to go to work, get supplies or for medical care. Note that these new measures do not include "limiting public transport, in order to guarantee continuity of economic activity “and to allow people to go to work “, assured Giuseppe Conte.
Questioned by the daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera this Monday, Doctor Christian Salaroli, anesthesiologist-resuscitator at the Jean-XXIII hospital in Bergamo, revealed that doctors practicing in hospitals in Lombardy, which concentrate the majority of cases of contamination with the virus, must now choose who to treat “depending on age and state of health, such as in wartime situations », lack of means.
According to the practitioner, patients with viral pneumonia and/or acute respiratory failure are first placed on non-invasive ventilation (NIV), using an oxygen mask.
“This is a first step, but after a few days we are forced to choose. Asthere is unfortunately a disproportion between hospital resources , intensive care beds and critically ill patients, not everyone can be intubated says the doctor.
“ We then decide according to age and state of health, he continues. If a person who is between 80 and 95 years old has severe respiratory failure, it is likely that we will not prosecute. If she has multi-organ failure, more than two or three vital organs, that means her mortality rate is 100%. It's lost .
The doctor is not the only one to lament the situation. Most of his colleagues, he explains, feel completely “overwhelmed by the situation . “It may be that a head of department or a young doctor who has just arrived must, in the early morning, decide the fate of a human being he explains.
The practitioner also considered the quarantine this Sunday of the inhabitants of Lombardy and the provinces of Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Piemonte too late. “What matters now is to stay at home . I keep repeating it. I see too many people on the street, you have no idea what is happening .
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