“There is a very worrying data: according to Istat, Italy in 2020 had about 30 thousand more deaths than those attributed to Covid and those expected for other diseases”. Silent, collateral victims of something that is consumed away from the spotlight. The alarm is raised by Filippo Anelli, president of Fnomceo, the National Federation of Medical Orders, who at Adnkronos Salute draws a picture of those patients who have been most affected by the wave of Covid-19 that has swept away hospitals. “This data worries us, because it can be the final consequence of even the so-called neglected diseases that cause pandemics.”
The concerns of doctors are concentrated in particular – but not only – on two families of pathologies, tumors and cardiovascular diseases, for the implications that risk taking on the delays in prevention, diagnosis, management and treatments recorded in recent months of fight to Sars-CoV-2. “At the top of course there are tumors. Data released by the Salutequità association show how, for example, cancer screening has literally collapsed”. But there’s more: “Many oncologist colleagues – reports Anelli – tell me that at the first access of patients they see staging pictures of the most advanced tumors, which had not been seen for a long time because we were able to make a very early diagnosis. diagnosis hardly happened to see such advanced diseases “.
“Then there is the chapter on cardiovascular pathologies, especially heart attacks”, notes Anelli. One of the first ’emergencies in the emergency’ emerged immediately on the occasion of the first Covid wave. There has been an increase and “even on this, our cardiologist colleagues tell us that the pictures we see today in the emergency room are of heart attacks in the acute phase. People arrive with a certain delay” and this has serious consequences in a long pathology. -employee. “Every minute lost is equivalent to an important part of heart tissue that dies. And this, where it has no fatal consequences – warns President Fnomceo – has long-term effects that are quite dramatic for the person’s recovery.
There is also a third family of diseases that are particularly affected by the pandemic. “The increase in psychiatric pathologies that occurs in every crisis of this kind is a more anticipated effect – explains the number one of the medical orders. We talk about minor and major depressions” and other forms of mental distress. “In all crises of various kinds worldwide these tend to increase”.
The effect of this ‘tsunami’ will spread for a long time, rings warn. “Obviously, unfortunately, we also expect a reduction in the survival rate in the future. We were among the longest-lived countries in the world even if with inequalities between the center and the ‘peripheries’. I believe that the” unintended impact of the pandemic on “these pathologies will compromise a brilliant result achieved. With a negative impact also on the quality of life, which will be more compromised due to the aggravated consequences of some diseases and will require further social and welfare efforts “.
The shadow of “inequality” extends over post-Covid. “Not all Italians seriously affected by the disease will have the same chances of recovery and return to normal life” warns the president of Fnomceo speaking with Adnkronos. “Those who have more resources will be able to overcome the problems related to illness more easily. There is a problem of quality of life and disparity in a very strong way. When one of the objectives we set ourselves was to improve the well-being of citizens in old age , reducing the consequences of diseases as much as possible. In this case, however, these consequences will be increased, in a context in which poverty itself becomes the cause of disease or worsening of conditions “.
His words turn the spotlight on one of the problems linked to the pandemic so far taken to the background: what happens when you return home after being hospitalized for Covid. “This is of great interest to doctors because the very conditions that determine inequalities worsen the level of disease”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also put emphasis on the topic of the post Covid, which asks health systems to follow patients with rigorous follow-up and experts to give a name and frame that syndrome that sometimes traps for months some of the people healed, now called ‘long Covid’. They are people who have recovered from the disease and continue to have long-term problems. People who “will need constant care and checks”.
“Alongside this – adds Anelli – there is the whole issue of inequalities that we are seeing in this phase, in which those who live in one of the ‘peripheries’ of the country, areas that we also find in the most developed areas, must measure themselves with a series of problems and from this it will have a series of consequences also for health. On all this we had repeatedly asked the attention of those who govern because it is inequality that has a profound impact on people’s health “.
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