New York 4 January 2024 by Geraldine Chaplin
Boom in cases of flu and respiratory viruses in Italy. "Like every year, but this year even more so due to the numbers reached by flu syndromes, in this period we are witnessing a health emergency which affects both the emergency rooms and not only. As family doctors these days we are overburdened with requests for information, phone calls, visits, certifications. There is an assault on our performance, like that of all healthcare professionals. Access to studies is greatly increasing.
"But the first practical consequence for us is that the calls have doubled. If on average on ordinary days the calls to general practitioners, at a national level, are around 2 million, they have now become 4 million". Alessandro Rossi, president of the Italian Society of General Medicine and Primary Care (SIMG), described the scenario to Adnkronos Salute, going into detail about the impact that the ongoing respiratory virus epidemic in the country is having on local healthcare.Dividing this total of calls by family doctors, who number around 40 thousand in Italy, we understand how each of us spends hours with the receiver in our hand", to answer at least a hundred calls daily, Rossi calculates. "We give advice, indications to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations, to obtain certifications. This load has increased and naturally the outpatient visits have also increased. It should be remembered that after the pandemic, fortunately, access is by appointment and even the dematerialized prescription was a help, so the enormous crowds that we physically saw in the pre-pandemic era are no longer seen". Moments "which are also at risk of further propagation " of flu epidemics. But "telephone and electronic contacts and even home visits have increased enormously in this period".
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