BOLZANO. Eleven thousand patients per year. Important result for the “primary care” clinic opened in December 2019 in the spaces of the San Maurizio Emergency Room, to deal with overcrowding.
The clinic tail-cutter – so it was renamed, entrusted to 20/25 family doctors who operate there on a rotation basis, is active seven days a week from 8am to midnight and takes care of all patients undergoing triage classified as blue and green codes (non-urgent). In short, patients who should contact their GP but don’t.
Gianni Pontarellialso a family doctor in Bolzano, a specialist in emergency surgery and emergency room, is responsible for the clinic: «We see an average of 30 patients a day. Last year, about 23. The number is slowly but steadily increasing. Colleagues are working to reduce waiting times and the results are visible».
In fact, every year, almost 92 thousand people enter the hospital’s emergency room (an average of about 250 visits per day) but only 1.57% are red codes (life-threatening), 14% orange (high criticality), 34% yellow (medium criticality). The rest are blue and green codes, no or low criticality. But how does the clinic work? Incoming patients are evaluated by “triage”, says Pontarelli, «those who are assigned a blue or green code are partly diverted to “primary care”, always within the emergency room area. The doctor performs the examination. If it is enough to solve the problem, the patient is discharged, otherwise we can also change the “triage” code, judging it to be of higher priority and then the patient returns to the emergency room. We are available – also for prescriptions, referrals for specialist visits and diagnostic tests, while in the clinic no instrumental tests or analyses are performed as happens in the clinics of our colleagues». The range of disorders that fall within the scope of the service includes – for example – back pain not due to trauma, dermatological disorders (insect bites, dermatitis, erythema, etc.) and also ear infections, rhinitis, pharyngotonsillitis, colds, gingivitis, stomatitis.
“We treat urinary tract infections, replace catheters, follow uncomplicated gastroenteritis, chronic constipation, flu with fever below 38 degrees and still requests for vaccinations etc. We remind you that patients who refer to this clinic do not pay the ticket”. The protest sign: “We are not the Emergency Room” In recent days, the newspaper has received several indignant phone calls from readers who found a sign hanging on the glass of the reception of a well-known family doctor’s office in the city center with the words: “We are not the Emergency Room”. The sign was removed after a couple of days, precisely because of the protests of some patients. The doctor complained about the various requests for assistance due to a wave of influenza. The patients were critical: “They tell us to go to the family doctor, but if we are treated like this, the only thing left for us to do is go to the Emergency Room”.
In fact, 80% of the patients treated by “primary care” are Bolzano residents who could have easily gone to their family doctor but preferred the Emergency Room. The remaining 20% are tourists from outside the province or foreigners.
2024-08-14 10:11:12