The intervention of Giuseppe Maria Corbo, pulmonologist, and Massimo Fantoni, infectious disease specialist, of the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome
We are two doctors, in charge of the Covid 2 Inpatient and Respiratory Insufficiency wards which since March 16, 2020 are open and operational in Rome at the Columbus Integrated Complex of the Agostino Gemelli IRCCS University Polyclinic Foundation dedicated to patients with Covid. This letter was born from the experience of almost two years of our daily commitment and that of our collaborators. We asked the unvaccinated patients we admitted to Columbus Covid 2 Hospital for the reason for their choice in recent months and the answer was often: “I didn’t understand, the news was confusing and discordant, I didn’t trust it“. We therefore want to describe the reality of Covid disease to unvaccinated people: we do not want to talk here about science or statistics or epidemiology, but about people who have fallen ill and whom we have known and treated. We will talk about an event and two feelings: the event is death, the two feelings are fear and pain.
Death appeared immediately in our wards, frequent outcome of this new disease that has entered our lives for almost two years: every morning in the ward we talked to patients through the oxygen mask, we asked ourselves what work they were doing, news about the family, their hobbies and passions, about the team of favorite football. In some cases in the afternoon we noticed that the breathing was faster. The oxygenation parameters were checked and had deteriorated. In the most serious cases, the intervention of the resuscitator was requested and the patient was transferred to intensive care and was left waiting for him to return to the ward, which unfortunately did not always happen. Both young and old patients died in our wards, to which during the hospitalization we had grown fond of. Friends died. At times we have felt helpless in the face of the new disease. Death is not a turning back event. Often perhaps we forget it. It’s not always about others.
However, in the last 8 months we have noticed a marked reduction in mortality from Covid: vaccinated patients who are hospitalized in our wards frequently have other concomitant diseases, even serious ones; while before the start of the vaccination campaign the complexity of the clinical picture was often not resolvable, now in the vast majority of cases we are able to treat our patients, who return home cured. Unvaccinated patients have a longer course, sometimes with complications and unfortunately the fatal outcome is more frequent. We see fear in the eyes of our patients: the disease manifests itself with a profound sense of fatigue and oppression in breathing. They find themselves isolated in a room without being able to receive any visit, other than health workers. Most people have been bombarded with Covid news. He knows of his lethality and for this he is afraid. This is in both the young and the elderly. Often older people are the bravest: they are aware of having lived and completed a journey.
Younger people experience the loss of autonomy: stopped in bed with an oxygen mask, sometimes forced to lie on your stomach to improve oxygenation. They ask us questions with their eyes. We have to hide our concern, but our patients feel they are “tightly marked.” Only when they see that we reduce the frequency of arterial blood samples for oxygen measurement are they cleared up. Finally, we want to talk about suffering. Yes, the suffering of patients with Covid in immediately feeling different from other patients from the moment they enter the emergency room. Covid patients who are hospitalized in intensive care can be intubated and in some cases tracheostomized: they are both traumatic events. When they return to the ward, the recovery period is long; not being able to get out of bed for weeks is hard to live with.
But suffering involves the whole family unit: Smartphone calls allow family members to communicate with their loved one when they are hospitalized. If the conditions worsen, and the patient cannot even speak, then we are the ones to give them the news: the anguish we perceive is truly enormous. Older people in particular cannot bear separation from family members: these are the people who most frequently have not overcome the disease and have left us, for which we have perceived an unconsolable pain. Finally, when a patient dies, family members cannot see their loved one for a last goodbye. The theme of suffering includes the sequelae that the disease leaves over time and often affects the lives of patients who are mostly discharged without respiratory failure, even if the lungs are damaged and recovery varies in time and extent.
What we have described is the reality of this new disease as we have lived it and we live it. We have described it to those who are undecided or opposed to vaccination why we need you to defeat it: the vaccine is not infallible but it is a safe weapon and is currently the most effective we have available to fight and protect us from Sars-CoV-2. Experiencing Covid respiratory failure is an experience of suffering and the outcome may not be favorable or in any case condition life due to the results it leaves behind. If any of you get vaccinated, we won’t have wasted any time.
Giuseppe Maria Corbo – Director of UOSD Respiratory Insufficiency, Agostino Gemelli University Hospital Foundation IRCCS – Catholic University, Rome
Massimo Fantoni – Director of UOC Wards Columbus Covid-2 Hospital, Agostino Gemelli University Hospital Foundation IRCCS – Catholic University, Rome
December 20, 2021 (change December 20, 2021 | 16:39)
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