'Coma woman on Rome ER stretcher for 4 days'
Situation 'intolerable, indecent' say Senators
20 February, 15:57
(ANSA) - Rome, February 20 - A woman has spent the last four
days in a coma on a stretcher in a Rome hospital emergency room
without nutrition, two Italian Senators told reporters Monday.The woman, 59, admitted with severe concussion, only had a water drip and was tied to the stretcher with sheets because it did not have raised sides to stop her falling off, Senators Ignazio Marino and Domenico Gramazio told ANSA.
"Medics told us they were waiting 'at any moment' to hear whether to move her into a ward," said the centre-left and centre-right Senators, who visited the ER room at the Umberto I hospital and two others after police last week ordered probes into emergency facilities at all Rome's hospitals. "The situation at the Umberto I is intolerable, totally indecent," Marino and Gramazio, Senators for the Lazio region, told ANSA.
"There were at least 20 people in the holding area, which is supposed to hold a maximum of eight.
"Stretchers were pushed one next to the other without any room to get through, with some people waiting to be moved since Friday".
A hospital official, Claudio Modini, said cases like that of the woman were "quite frequent" and "solutions have to be found".
The Senators also paid impromptu visits to the San Camillo and San Giovanni hospitals ERs.
Rome prosecutors opened a probe into Rome's public-hospital ERs on Thursday.
The investigation was sparked by photos published Wednesday in Rome daily Il Messaggero showing medical procedures being carried out on floor of the San Camillo.
Democratic Party Senator and eminent transplant surgeon Marino, who is head of a parliamentary committee on the national health service, said the probe should shed light on problems without becoming a "witch hunt" He said the healthcare system was in "difficulty".
photo: archive pic of Umberto I hospital
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