These could be the last days of the most debated measure linked to the Covid emergency: the obligation to wear masks for workers, users and visitors to departments of health facilities hosting frail, elderly or immunosuppressed patients (identified by the same management health structures), and social health and social care structures, from RSAs to hospices. From July 1st, in fact, the new ordinance of the Prevention Directorate of the Ministry of Health should be valid which should also send this last bastion of the Covid era into retirement and aim, instead, to continue along the line of the “paradigm change on responsibility” both of the citizen and of those responsible for protecting the safety of the most vulnerable, concepts often underlined by the director of Prevention, Francesco Vaia, in his public interventions.
The ordinance provides some recommendations for the medical directors of the facilities but, unless there are last-minute changes, we are moving towards saying goodbye to the obligation of the device. The previous ordinance, in addition to providing for the obligation to wear masks for departments frequented by frail people, gave discretion to the health departments of the facilities to decide on the use of respiratory protection devices in different departments such as emergency rooms and in treatment rooms. waiting, explaining that it was also possible to arrange its use for all those who presented respiratory symptoms.
