Cancer patients being treated in the Oncology department of the Carate Brianza hospital are worried and protesting.
From September 15th, to undergo visits, check-ups and therapies, the approximately one hundred patients will have to go to Vimercate or Desio. The decision was communicated on Wednesday by the company’s top management in an afternoon meeting also attended by Dr. Salvatore Artaledirector of the Complex Structure of Medical Oncology.
Cardiac Rehabilitation Moves from Seregno to Carate
The reason? The start of the construction site for the redevelopment of the premises of the Cardiac Rehabilitation department in Seregno, which will be temporarily – and at least for a year – transferred to the spaces on the third floor of the monobloc of the city hospital in via Mosé Bianchi by decision of the Strategic Management of the Asst della Brianza.
A real cold shower for the patients, many of whom have turned to our newspaper to denounce, disapproving it without half measures, the recent decision to be “transferred” to the facilities in Vimercate or Desio. For some, it would even be the antechamber of a move that “could also prove, in the end, definitive”. With all the problems that would ensue. The patients are against this move because, they say, for those who have to undergo treatment to fight cancer “it will be much more inconvenient to have to go out of town”.
“I am being treated for colon cancer after defeating another cancer years ago,” says GC, a sick woman living in Verano Brianza. “My husband doesn’t drive and I find myself having to manage visits and therapies alone, with all the difficulties that such a decision entails: but has anyone taken into consideration the difficulties of those who have to go to the hospital continuously to survive?”.
But there are those who also make it a question of sensitivity and responsibility on the part of the Company towards patients: “If the patient must be the center of care first, with what sense of responsibility was it decided to move the Oncology department to a place where there are very fragile patients? If the redevelopment of the Cardiac Rehabilitation premises in Seregno had been planned for some time, couldn’t different solutions have been studied? – another young patient vents – In Giussano, for example, or in another wing of the old hospital where Medicine used to be and where accommodation for doctors and offices have been created. Wouldn’t it have been more logical to ask for a sacrifice from those who fortunately enjoy good health? This transfer actually causes further difficulties for people who are already severely tested by the disease”.
Hospital Strategic Management Reassures Patients
On the corporate front, the Strategic Management has tried to reassure patients: “We are obviously aware that there may be inconveniences – Asst Brianza informs our weekly – However, this is a temporary transfer, linked to structural needs aimed at improving our facilities. We have communicated this decision well in advance, so that there is time to evaluate and take into consideration any special or logistical needs of individual patients, who will be divided according to proximity to the two hospitals that will receive them. Precisely because they are fragile patients – the hospital’s top management has pointed out – therapeutic continuity will be absolutely guaranteed, which also becomes fundamental from a psychological point of view for that bond of trust that is naturally created between the patients and the medical and nursing staff. We ensure full availability to evaluate each individual case, should there be situations of special need”.
The mayor of Carate Brianza was also interested in the delicate matter, Luca Vegan(Forza Italia) who assured a meeting with the management of the hospital after having collected the outburst of some cancer patients during the week.
