Covid steals hospital beds and doctors even from cancer patients. With the result that, especially in some regions, cancer patients on the waiting list, instead of being operated on within the tight deadlines set by the protocols, wait for months for a call from the hospital.
"At the Policlinico di Catania the doctors explained to me that they would have my thyroid removed for a lump at 30% risk of carcinoma, verified with the aspirated needle. It was April 2021. I should have been operated on at the end of September. There are nine. months of waiting for a phone call, my family and I live in anxiety and fear of what can happen to me ". Laura, 54, employed in an office of the Ministry of Justice in Agrigento, tells it.
One of the thousands of patients entered on the waiting list because the wards are increasingly occupied by patients with Covid, doctors and nurses are diverted to wards dedicated to the virus, and interventions that do not fall into the 'urgent' category swell the ranks. Despite what Laura must undergo is a "life-saving surgery", as defined by the surgeon of the Polyclinic and president of the Italian Society of Surgery Francesco Basile.
"The waiting lists for non-emergency surgery also include operations for cancers, from breast, stomach, colon. These are operations that must be done within 15-20 days and certainly not after three months or more. , because people's lives are at stake ", explains Francesco Cognetti, president of the Federation of Oncologists, Cardiologists and Hematologists, commenting on the stop to scheduled surgery due to the increase in pressure on Covid hospitals.
In short, what Laura should undergo is a so-called elective surgery, while the emergency ones concern, for example, bleeding or intestinal obstructions.
"At the Polyclinic I was told that I would be operated on within three months, but it was not. They explain to me that there is a shortage of staff, there are no anesthetists - says Laura - in this long wait I continue to work trying to give my best, but at night it is increasingly difficult to sleep, I feel a strong squeeze in my throat, I don't even know if it is anguish or illness ". "I called the doctor who follows me but he has not been able to give me a date - he vented - I feel a terrible sense of helplessness, who should I contact? If I went to another hospital I would have to start the process of analysis and examinations again. And then I don't want to try outside Sicily, it's already difficult for me and my family, far from home it would be even worse ". "I asked the doctors of the Catania Polyclinic to take action,to let the outside know what is happening, to let others hear our voice - he proposes - we cannot leave people in these conditions, without knowing how the disease evolves ".
Basile is one of the doctors who directly address the fears of patients: "The people on the waiting list call us in tears, they don't have a horizon, a date on when they will have the surgery is terrible, we have hundreds of people only here from we, for various pathologies, in this situation "Cognetti for his part points the finger at the lack of listening to this dramatic situation:" The delay in the operations of patients with cancer is very serious, since in oncology only 10-20% of cases it falls within the definition of emergency. All the others are out of it. We have been saying this for two years, since Covid patients have filled hospital beds, but no one listens to us. "