Italy struggles to make room for onslaught of virus patients

Three weeks into Italy’s coronavirus crisis, Dr. Sergio Cattaneo has seen an unused ward outfitted into an intensive care unit in six days, a hospital laundry room converted into a giant stretcher-filled waiting room and a tented field hospital erected outside to test possible new virus patients.

But Cattaneo, head of anessiology and intensive care at public hospital in Brescia in rrn Italy, still can’t get his head around curve — urd slope of new infections in Italy that tracks almost exactly trajectory of cases in Wuhan, China, where global pandemic began three months ago.

“What is really shocking — something we had t been able to forecast and brought us to our knees — is quickness epidemic spreads,” Cattaneo told Associated Press during an exclusive tour of Brecia’s newest ICU. “If spreading of this epidemic is t put under control, it will bring all hospitals to ir knees.”

Cattaneo’s new ICU added six more beds to hospital’s capacity, bringing to 42 number of ICU beds dedicated to virus. Across Lombardy region, local authorities are pushing ahead with plans to build a 400-bed ICU field hospital at Milan fairgrounds, even though civil protection ncy has warned that it doesn’t have ventilators or personnel to staff it, and that time is running out.

“ secret has been — and this should be a strong mess for foreign countries — to act early on this, in order to avoid — like in our case — having to chase after it day after day,” Cattaneo said.

Brescia, an industrial city of nearly 200,000 east of Milan and capital of a province of 1.2 million, is second only to nearby Bergamo in positive cases in Lombardy, epicenter of pandemic in Europe.

For past two days, Brescia actually outpaced Bergamo in number of new infections, on Tuesday adding ar 382 positive tests for a total of 3,300 and suggesting that it is becoming Lombardy’s hottest hot spot.

Indeed, seven of Brescia’s deaths this week were among residents of same nursing home in Barbariga, where ar eight elderly people tested positive, local media reported. While many people suffer relatively mild symptoms from virus, mortality rate in Italy in people over 80 is 22 percent, according to statistics from National Institutes of Health.

By Tuesday, Italy recorded 31,506 positive cases and 2,503 deaths, more than anywhere outside China.

It has been a race against time for Lombardy to add more ICU beds than patients who need m, t an easy task given that 10 percent of all Italy’s infected require ICU admission, primarily for respiratory help.

Nearly all admitted patients have interstitial pneumonia, a disease in which lace-like tissue of lungs’ alveoli become inflamed, leading to progressive respiratory failure, according to Giovanna Perone, director of Brescia’s emergency services.

“In last few days, number of people arriving here on ir own and reporting such symptoms has increased,” Perone said outside civil protection tents where walk-in patients are tested and n sent to hospital’s converted laundry room to await results.

onslaught of infections has completely overwhelmed public health system in Italy’s prosperous rth, prompting regional officials to beg retired doctors to come back to work and to accelerate graduation dates for nurses and specialists.

“I ask you from my heart, we need your competency, your experience, your efficiency,” said Giulio Gallera, Lombardy’s chief healthcare official. “Give us a hand.”

25 billion euro aid pack Italian government approved Monday, aimed at bolstering both health care system and helping businesses, workers and families wear ecomic hit, also contains provisions to hire 10,000 more medical personnel.

Already Lombardy this week has received 2,200 responses to a “help wanted” sign on its Facebook p, and hired over 1,000 people, Gallera said.

Italy’s medical personnel also complain about critical shorts of gear, including protective masks and glasses. Italy’s national federations of doctors and nurses issued a joint alarm Tuesday over more than 2,300 medical personnel who have been infected, 1,900 of m doctors and nurses. two groups demanded adequate protective masks, gloves and or equipment as a matter of national security for 900,000-strong medical workforce in Italy.

“We have to redefine priorities in fight,” said Filippo Anelli, head of doctors’ federation. “It’s unfathomable, unworthy of a civil society and puts public health at risk.”

Italy’s civil protection ncy has blasted countries for failing to follow through on orders of protective masks, including 20 million that were under contract but were never delivered. Civil protection chief Angelo Borrelli has named India, Russia, Romania and France as countries that have blocked exports of specialized masks, which Italy doesn’t produce domestically.

“What we’re seeing is a closure of borders to exportation,” he lamented this week.

Prisoners are being put to work to make surgical masks, since re’s a short of m, too. Justice Ministry estimates that inmates could produce as many as 10,000 a day.

shorts, as well as 12-hour shifts that sometimes last for 18, are taking a toll on health care workers still standing. State-run RAI television runs near-nightly interviews with doctors and nurses on front line, making urgent, exhausted appeals for Italians to just stay home.

“Family life has changed too of course because we eir live in self-isolation at home, out of fears of creating problems, or even sleeping elsewhere in some cases,” said Fabio Arrighini, nursing coordinator for Brescia’s health care emergency service.

(im credit: AP)