Giovambattista presti, a psychologist at the Kore University of Enna in Sicily, is an adviser to the Policlinico, Milan’s oldest hospital, which is at the centre of Italy’s covid-19 epidemic. Of great concern now, says Mr Presti, is staff burnout. He is particularly worried about post-traumatic stress disorder among some medics. If hospitals reach the point at which they no longer have the capacity to treat every patient, some of them “will be forced to decide who should go into intensive care and who should be left to die”.
Similar accounts are emerging elsewhere. Daniele Macchini is a doctor at the Humanitas Gavazzeni hospital in nearby Bergamo. It has been overwhelmed by covid-19 patients. “Cases are multiplying. We are getting 15-20 admissions a day,” he wrote on Facebook. “The results of the swabs come in one after another: positive, positive, positive. All of a sudden, accident and emergency is collapsing.” Nurses, he added, have been reduced to tears “because we cannot save everyone”.
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