From those suffering from bronchitis to those with kidney or heart failure, almost 700,000 people, in internal medicine wards alone, have suffered the indirect effects of Covid, seeing skipping hospitalization due to the pandemic.
And, especially the chronically ill are penalized: almost 400,000 were not guaranteed hospital care.
This is highlighted by an estimate by the Federation of Associations of Hospital Internists (Fadoi), which, starting from the 2018 hospital admissions data, the latest available on the website of the Ministry of Health and based on the Hospital Discharge Forms, compared them with patients assisted in internal medicine wards in 2020. A theoretical evaluation, Fadoi underlines, because at the moment no official data are available on actual hospitalizations for Covid, beyond the updates on daily admissions.
In 2018 there were 995,951 admissions to internal medicine wards, of which 56% represented by chronic patients.
Even if the total number of Covid patients hospitalized so far since the beginning of the pandemic is missing, we know that the indicator of hospitalized patients is around 5%.
"So, out of a total of approximately 1.8 million infected, approximately 90,000 people would have been hospitalized in the non-critical area for Covid. Of these, 70% (63,000) have occupied internal Medicine, remaining there on average about double the normal hospitalizations ", explains to ANSA Dario Manfellotto, president of Fadoi and director of internal medicine at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on the Tiberina Island in Rome.
"The hospital beds of Internal Medicine in Italy are 29,000 and only a third of the beds have been available for non-Covid patients in recent months, for a total of 299,000 non-Covid hospitalizations from late February to mid-December. This means that, in these months wards, compared to 995,951 in 2018, about 696,950 fewer no Covid patients were treated due to the pandemic ".
Of these, moreover, 56% are chronically ill, suffering for example from heart, kidney or respiratory failure: "this means that more than 390,900 chronically ill patients have not been able to guarantee assistance".
To weigh on the numbers also the fact that the average time of a Covid hospitalization is about 14-20 days, about double compared to a standard, whose duration is on average 9 days.
This problem, explains Manfellotto, "in the second wave we see it a little throughout Italy even if in some regions it remains more critical, such as those of the North, but also Abruzzo, Liguria, Puglia, Campania, Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany".
It is difficult to say where these sick people are.
"They were not inappropriate hospitalizations and concerned fragile subjects or with more than one pathology. Many therefore it is possible that until they became Covid sick, many died in their homes or in the RSA. Fortunately others - he concludes - probably did not have complications thanks to the fact who remained blocked and protected at home ".
(HANDLE).