A 57-year-old doctor who tested positive for coronavirus and who was working in a hospital in the town of Codogno has died.
Marcello Natali had been hospitalised in Cremona before being transferred to Milan after developing double pneumonia. In one of the last interviews he gave before he was tested for COVID-19, he told Euronews that he had had to work without gloves: "They have run out," he said.
He also said that in Codogno and a nearby town, Casale, 14 out of 35 doctors were in quarantine or hospitalised as of February 28.
"We weren't prepared for coronavirus: as doctors of the post antibiotic era, we grew up thinking that a pill against everything was enough," he said.
Natali's death was confirmed by a representative of the Italian Federation of General Practitioners, who said that he too was suffering from double pneumonia because of the coronavirus.
Paola Pedrini, regional secretary at the federation, told Euronews that 110 doctors out of 600 in the sole province of Bergamo are sick.
"The situation has not gotten better since end of February. We received some mask, some gloves kit, nothing else. A mask that should last half-a-day, here lasts a week."
"We practice a lot over the phone, when possible, to avoid the spread of the virus and getting in contact with asymptomatic people who still carry the virus"
Italy announced a record daily death toll of 475 on Wednesday, bringing the number of dead in the country to 2,978, with almost 36,000 confirmed cases.
Many European countries have struggled to find enough gloves, medical masks and items such as hand sanitiser in stories as demand is intensified by panic buying.
meneghino on March 19th, 2020 at 13:09 UTC »
Italian here, reading other news from Italian sources. He worked in the cluster of Codogno, hectic days during the first outbreak in the country. I can’t see any article saying that missing gloves are the reason. Could very well be during those days. In any case, the scary thing is he was just 57 without other conditions. That makes me so sad. Stay home people, don’t put pressure on doctors. This is a serious illness. Young people don’t die but get very sick and could have long lasting damage.
Edit: found this article in Italian quoting a last text he sent to a colleague: “We were sent to war without protection” adding that he wasn’t doing well and soon he would need artificial ventilation. More than missing gloves, it sounds like doctors available in the area assisted the first wave of patients unprepared, without an adequate antiviral gear.
Edit 2: I’m not a doctor, those who say it’s no serious illness for 99% of people maybe are doctors. True, young people below 30 generally speaking don’t die but again, listen to what experts say. I’m saying it’s a serious illness because the Italian army in Bergamo, the most affected county, had to move hundreds of corpses for cremation to other cities because they had no space to put them. This is a fact, then you can draw your own conclusions. Stay home.
Drshashank on March 19th, 2020 at 12:22 UTC »
In our hospital 12 thousand masks were stolen two weeks ago. Now we have to ration for even front line workers. We have just got our first patient now and we will be out of masks within a week or two. How was prepared for this kind of onslaught. I am sure most of the big hospitals are facing similar thefts.
Physics and nurses Can’t stop seeing the regular patients in the mean time. There is no mandatory requirement for mask or gloves. Then there is influx of Covid 19 patients. Both regular patient which is 50 percent and Covid patient rest 50percent start to mingle. COVId19 reaches high density spread. In a 12 hour shift hard to avoid touching your face or nose since your are not wearing gloves all the time and you never know when you get the infection. My 2-cents
KaapstadGuy on March 19th, 2020 at 10:44 UTC »
Very sad thats it got to this point, our lab uses boxes of gloves a day, it's easy to imagine a hospital running out quickly..