Superbugs don’t stand a chance in Italian hospitals, says recent patient alan hutchison |
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Sharing a 15 square-foot hospital room with Ipolito and my wife had not been Plan A for our Italian mini-break. But then nor was a three-hour emergency operation in Arezzo, Tuscany, in hospital for acute peritonitis.
A one-week art history refresher turned into a six-week course on contrasting and comparing the Italian and British state health systems. I owe my life to modern technology (a CAT scan) and the skill of surgeons - so far the same; it is in after-care that the British and Italian systems differ so markedly.
Family back-up is key to post-operative care in Italy. Each patient has to have at least one full-time, 'live-in' family supporter - to supply food and clean clothes, wash the patient, exercise him or her, liaise with the outside world and otherwise assist the - strictly medical - nurses. We called them ghosts,
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| Family back-up is key to post-op care in Italy. Each patient has to have at least one ‘live-in’ family supporter |
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because after a time that is what they looked like.
The majority of patients came from working-class or contadino (peasant) backgrounds, and the role of their ghost is very tough. Most rooms have two (curtain-less) beds in them for two patients of the same sex.
It is possible to 'buy' the extra bed (at around £100 per day) so that you can have privacy and your supporter can get some sleep. Few can afford that, and the ghost has to make a bed out of a hard chair (or, as some do, bring in their own deck-chair, which gives a faintly incongruous seaside flavour to the room).
There is also, as in all state hospitals, the lottery of your room companion. At the extreme it is possible for a not-very seriously ill young football fanatic to be put in with a frail, terminally ill geriatric.
The (shared) TV can blare all day; at night a party rages. Innate Italian good manners means this rarely happens. More marked is the spirit of co-operation, food-sharing and  |
