Italian doctors on Friday
launched a campaign to wipe out racism and intolerance in the
national health service.
The head of the federation of of surgeons and orthodontists'
guilds Fnomceo, Filippo Anelli, proposed the campaign after an
oncologist at a Cagliari hospital in Sardinia denounced in a
Facebook post that relatives of some of her patients who were
waiting for palliative care complained they had been waiting for
too long, saying it was a "negro's fault".
Anelli told ANSA the idea is "to involve other health
professionals too as well as citizens' associations".
Posters against racism will be put up in streets, studios and
hospitals, he said.
The Cagliari doctor, Maria Cristina Deidda, said she had
briefly left the clinic where the patients were waiting for a
consultation "on a patient of Senegalese origin" at the
hospital.
"As many as four people, who were accompanying some of my
patients, complained they were kept waiting and it was a
'negro's fault'", the doctor said, apologizing on their behalf
and saying she felt "deeply ashamed" for their behavior, a local
daily reported.
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