How nursing homes can become hell in the new crown crisis. This article comes from the WeChat public account: World Saying (ID: globusnews ) , author: Shen Tian Hao, the original title: “abandoned elderly: Italian nursing home outbreak Chronicle,” Editor: Zhu Kai, head diagram from :

“We sent our parents to make them recover, not to kill them.”

Don · Gnocchi is a well-known nursing home in Milan, Italy, and belongs to the foundation of the same name. It is named by Milan ’s Don. Carlo Gnocchi (Beato Don Carlo Gnocchi) named. The monk rescued many prisoners and Jews during World War II, sent them to Switzerland to take refuge, and saved many lives. After his death, he was named a true blessing by the Catholic Church, second only to saints.

No one thought that this foundation would be killed by Cao Sugan, and the employees in the nursing home and the family of the deceased would be jointly brought to court.

Italian aging is serious, the nursing home has a large population, and the tragedy of mass infections in the nursing home during the epidemic and the death of a large number of elderly people are frequent. It has even been described by the local media as a “slaughter” of the elderly.

Not long ago, the Italian National Health Institute launched a survey. From the end of March to April 6, the results of the survey showed that a total of 44,457 elderly people lived, a total of 3859 people died.

How many elderly deaths can be attributed to the new crown? surveyThe other set of figures in this article can be used for our reference: 133 of the dead have been positive in the pharyngeal swab test before death, and another 1310 people have shown flu symptoms, a total of 1443, accounting for 37.4% of the total deaths.

The generation who created this country’s “economic miracle” in the 1960s personally never expected that such a harsh situation would have happened in the last period of life that should have enjoyed a calm day.

“Slaughter”: The numbers are shocking

“Scandal”. The Italian “Repubblica” defines what is happening in Milan Triurzio nursing homes (Pio Albergo Trivulzio) . From March to April 14, 143 elderly people have died here. This nursing home, founded in 1766, is the oldest and largest institution of its kind in Italy and is well known in Milan.

Triurzio Nursing Home / Internet

In other areas of Milan, the Medilia Nursing Home in Lodi Province in the southeastern suburbs of Milan was focused by Italian media at the end of March (RSA di Mediglia) , the first nursing home in Italy to be looted by the new coronavirus, has killed 65 people during the outbreak. As mentioned earlier, the prosecuted Don Gnocchi (Don Gnocchi) the number of deaths in nursing homes has even exceeded 150.

Why is the spread of the outbreak in nursing homes so serious in Italy?

Terry under the spotlightAs an example of the Urzio nursing home, in March, when the Italian epidemic had already exploded, the nursing home not only did not strictly restrict the entry and exit of foreigners, but made an important decision to start receiving non-new coronary patients from other hospitals, which was the pressure Hospitals on the verge of extreme value have vacated beds to treat more patients with new crowns.

The hospital ’s decision was not entirely surprising, because it has been receiving elderly patients from the Milan emergency system since three years ago, and most of their bodies are quite fragile.

But for some reason, nursing homes have not completely isolated patients received from outside—at least, they share the same medical resources, that is, doctors and nurses.

Now faced with heavy questions, the hospital repeatedly emphasized that the external patients received at that time were all non-new crown cases. However, in the mainstream media such as the “Republican”, the hospital’s decision is very rash: even the test strip test is not 100% reliable. Moreover, the patients received are from general hospitals, and the recipient is a nursing home.

As a doctor told The Evening Post, such a decision is like putting the virus in a blender and then opening the lid to let it spread indiscriminately in the nursing home. The doctors and nurses running between different departments in the hospital play this blender.

Of course, this should not mean the existence of medical staff, but they can do nothing about it. According to many internal employees, before March 22, all medical staff in nursing homes were not allowed to wear masks, even if they were brought from home, unless they involved suspected cases.

This situation shocked the whole of Italy and made the media and the public angry with the staff in the nursing home. “They have been concealing the situation from us, and have prohibited us from wearing masks in a terrorist way, so that we should not pass on panic. They use water instead of disinfectant. Of course I understand the priority of the hospital, but I am also a nurse I do n’t want to bring anything (virus) to the nursing home, and of course I do n’t want to bring them to my own home. “-A nurse said .

Because of such a long-term working environment, Triurzio ’s medical staff launched a sudden strike for about two hours. “That morning, we looked at each other and everyone was very frustrated and full of fear. We were afraid of spreading the virus to the children and the elderly at home.” A Georgian Asian nurse told the Italian AGI news agency.

She subsequently revealed that two people came that afternoon, and they used the key to open the locker and took all the masks inside— “Now, they will be sent to those who really need it, “the uninvited guest said to the care workers, and claimed that as requested by the Lombardy regional government, these care workers are not among the people who must wear masks.

The days when no masks could be worn continued until the end of March, but when the crowd finally waited for adequate mask supplies and swallowing swab tests on some people, the entire nursing home was completely involved in the vortex of the virus. The symptoms of the new crown appeared in various departments of the hospital, and the medical staff began to show symptoms and were diagnosed. This nursing home with a history of more than 200 years and more than 1,000 residents has completely collapsed.

Miserable: not just Triulzio

In addition to the provinces of Milan and Lodi, other provinces and regions have carried out similar investigations—the chaos and tragedy of nursing homes are not unique to Milan and Lombardy.

In the three provinces of central Tuscany (Florence, Prato and Pistoia) , nursing homes under the Health Affairs Office 450 residents and nearly 200 medical staff tested positive for the new crown.

In the southern region of Puglia, the April 5th episode of LA7 TV station shocked the whole of Italy: a nursing home in the small town of Soleto, 80 new crowns from 87 residents were positive, 10 of them already death. In late March, for nearly two days, this nursing home was abandoned by medical staff, and the old people were left in the building. No one took care of their food and living until the local government intervened.

Mattia, a doctor at the Lecce Health Office, admitted to the camera that some of the dead might not die from the new crown, but from hunger and thirst. Regarding this appalling possibility, the judicial authorities and the health office are conducting joint verification of the specific circumstances of several deceased persons.

near Rome, Italy, The ambulance passes through a roadblock, on the other side of the roadblock is a nursing home / network

It seems unbelievable that such a thing happened in a developed country. In fact, some nursing homes are even expensive. For example, in Triulzio, some family members disclosed that the monthly cost of living for their mothers is between 2,500 and 3,000 euros.

The per capita salary in Italy is not high. For example, a monthly salary of 3,000 euros is already considered to be a middle-high income among the crowd. Of course, the situation of nursing homes is also different. There are many elderly people in Italy who are not cared for by their children. Their economic situation is also stretched. They may be forced to spend their old age in nursing homes; Sending parents to a nursing home is not actually to shirk the responsibility of care, but to hope that parents will get better health protection and living environment.

The nursing homes we have discussed so far are of a medical nature. In fact, some nursing homes are not equipped with medical personnel, and they are naturally not included in the national medical system, but the conditions are also not bad: for example, a grandmother of my colleague The seniors voluntarily chose to go to the nursing home, and spent the last years of their lives happily.

Her nursing home is actually a villa on the shore of Lake Como in the north of Milan. There are only 8 elderly people in the house who are familiar with each other. Colleagues’ grandmothers usually go to a nursing home early in the morning and go back to sleep after a day of fun.

I heard this story from my colleagues in February, when the epidemic in Italy had begun to spread, but the tragic world of nursing homes had not yet opened. I naturally could not imagine it anyway, and the situation would have evolved there.

Until mid-to-late March, with the mass deaths of the elderly in the Medilia nursing home in the southeastern suburbs of Milan, this extremely heavy topic gradually came into view. This is also what most children of nursing home residents care about: the outbreak time of nursing home problems, combined with the timeline of the development of the Italian epidemic, is definitely not too early.

If there is a basic pre-judgment on the development situation from the outbreak, if the hospital administrators have the most basic sense of responsibility and professionalism, many tragedies could have been avoided.

To this day, many children who sent their parents to nursing homes at the time were heartbroken. There are two videos from the last few days that are inscribed in my mind: In one of the videos, the interviewee is a middle-aged woman.

Her mother is a resident of the Don Gioki Nursing Home, and she just died a few days ago. Since the quarantine was unable to meet, all messages were transmitted by telephone. From “Your mother’s condition is not good” to “Is it possible that you want her to accept hospice care”, the sense of despair isLooking at the screen passed over, it also made people suffocate.

The coffin of a deceased person with a new crown pneumonia stopped in front of the cemetery in Bergamo, Italy / Internet

Chaos: blame each other, seem to have known each other

From the financial police in the province of Milan to the special operations team sent by the Italian Ministry of Health in Rome. On April 16, a group of lawmakers will report on the situation of Triurzio and other nursing homes in Lombardy to Parliament, and file a complaint.

Tri Urzio is surrounded by a lot, and General Manager Calizio resigns with blame. There is no suspense. The only question is whether there will be criminal charges to follow up.

The 48-year-old Calizio has recently become a public enemy of Italy. People ironically called him “philosopher” because a bachelor’s degree in philosophy is the only advanced degree on his resume. Why can a person with no medical or management background sit in such a high position? Nobody knows.

Who is the big fish behind Calizio? Under Italy’s complicated government structure and management system, all parties do not want to be the object of liquidation after the epidemic. On May 7th, Milan Mayor Sarah talked about the nursing home incident in his “Daily Greetings” video.

Sarah said, “The scene where the coffins are piled up is heartbreaking”, but apart from the heartbreak, he has not forgotten his position and his job: “Triurzio, and all other registered nursing homes, All should be under the jurisdiction of the Lombardy Regional Government. “

Although the gesture of blatantly throwing out the bomb is a bit ugly, Sarah’s words make sense. Under the management framework of the Lombardy medical system, the health offices of the provinces under the region should manage these registered nursing homes.