“Doctor, I’ve done everything I wanted in my life, I am 90 years old, let me go”. On the hospital bed overlooking the splendid Val d’Intelvi, in the province of How, with its highest point called the Balcony of Italy on Summit Sighignola, on the border with Switzerland, the elderly Covid patient, looks at the CPAP helmet and pulls it away at the same time hand to the doctor. He doesn’t want time and energy to be wasted on him. He saw many younger patients in the other beds. But the doctor encourages him with a smile, proceeds with the treatment, puts him back on his feet. The ninety-year-old has made it, is better, and yesterday he was discharged. Another story of the fight that has been fought in hospitals against the pandemic for months and was told by the doctor himself, Giuseppe Vallo, Head of Respiratory Rehabilitation al Cof Lanzo Hospital ad High Intelvi Valley. On his Facebook page he wrote a post in the form of a letter addressed to the elderly. Cof is short for Orthopedics and physiatrics clinic, but even here, with the pandemic that is ravaging the Lombardy, a Covid ward had to be opened a few weeks ago, where the ninety-year-old was hospitalized on November 1st.
“When I read your date of birth I immediately noticed that you have only 8 days more than my dad, so soon you will be 91 years old – wrote Vallo addressing his former patient – On the second day the oxygenation was so low that I had to put on a cpap helmet with a percentage of oxygen of 100% (consider that what we breathe is 21% ). You shook my hand and you said to me: ‘doctor I did everything I wanted in my life I am 90 years old let me go’. Your smile and your dignity gripped my heart so tightly that it seemed to me that I was the one who lacked oxygen ”.
The battle fought “together” begins, as Vallo says. “I was able to show you with a phone your relatives, the nurses took care of you, they all did their job with love, the cleaners always cleaned your room and after 15 days we pulled you out of the intensive room, as beautiful as before .. you started walking again , with the super help of our physiotherapists “. “You have thanked us so many times but the truth is that we have to thank you because you you give us hope and the desire to continue every day to fight: we saved you and you saved us .. ”, concludes the head of the department who with his post is receiving hundreds of moved comments and thanks.
In the cof of High Intelvi Valley (a town of about 3000 inhabitants, born 3 years ago from the merger of 3 small villages Lanzo d’Intelvi, Pellio Intelvi e Ramponio Verna) i 43 Covid beds they are mainly occupied by residents of this area of Lombardy. Like the ninety-year-old resigned to die. From the hospital management they confirmed that the patient has not been hospitalized since yesterday but they did not want to make other statements. “It is our job – they said – These events happen every day in all Italian hospitals”.
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