A dark time, for all of us. Yet already far away, ended up in the ”memory box” to be forgotten. To keep the memory of the past alive, trying to treasure what the pandemic has ultimately left us as a legacy, the Municipality of Casatenovo organized an intense evening on Thursday 18 April, which was attended by two doctors from the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo. A facility on which, in the Covid period, international media attention was focused due to the numerous cases of contagion that the staff of the Orobic structure were called upon to manage. Once out of that tunnel at the end of which at the beginning it was really difficult to see the light, nineteen doctors and nurses gave life to a theatrical show entitled ”Silent Days, White Nights” to make the fears and emotions experienced in the ward during those very difficult months tangible.
An initiative that has aroused great consensus in the city and in the surrounding area, where the wounds of Covid still burn. Too many victims of that ”devil”, as a virus that arrived from far away was initially called and which for a long period disrupted the lives of all of us, throwing us into a surreal daily life.
Gabriella Erba
”The idea was to give back to the city what had been experienced in the hospital” he introduced Gabriella Erba of the Isidora Duncan Center, in presenting the show, of which last night some clips were shown on video, introduced by the councilor for social services Gaetano Caldirola. ”A hospital that ended up at the center of global media attention. Then there was the desire to re-elaborate the experience through a theatrical narrative, honoring all the patients, even and above all those who had not made it. A project that generated great enthusiasm thanks to the brilliant direction of Silvia Briozzo” added Erba.
It was not easy for the staff of the Bergamo hospital involved in the project to reconcile this experience with their daily lives in the ward. Every Tuesday evening and many weekends, the nineteen doctor and nurse actors had to commit themselves to rehearsals and then staging the show, which sold out in the areas of Bergamo and Brescia which could well understand those intense and dramatic emotions. .
Doctor Roberto Cosentini
Among the actors who took to the stage was also Dr Roberto Cosentini, who is and was the director of the emergency room at Papa Giovanni. It is useless to remember how much that period marked him. ”The courage to face those memories is what drove us to organize this show. In addition to reliving those moments, retracing that period also served those who came to see and listen to us. On our part there was a desire to share our feelings and I must say that it helped us. We are very happy and proud of what we have done”.
Even the colleague Massimiliano De Vecchi, another white coat from the Bergamo hospital, last night retraced the emotions that pushed him to go on stage. ”During the pandemic we were lost in the face of what was happening, we were overwhelmed by pain. We could hear our hospital creaking. Once the hardest period was over, I personally had lost the desire to go back to work, after everything we had experienced. However, this initiative pushed us to talk about that pain, to share it. And it helped us.”
On the left, Doctor Massimiliano De Vecchi and next to Doctor (and mayor) Filippo Galbiati
An experience lived in another place but with the same methods also by the mayor Filippo Galbiati, ”in the trenches” at the Niguarda Hospital in Milan. Having put aside the role of administrator for a few minutes, the doctor from Casate talked about what Covid has left him with. ”This evening helps us to remember why our society has a problem: it tends to forget things too often, too quickly,” he said, sharing the three elements that, after the pandemic, should be treasured. First of all, breathing, another element that is taken for granted; only when it is missing is its vital necessity understood. And then the relationship between people, the support of affection.
”Proposing intubation to patients who were completely alone, who could not see their family members, was also distressing for us doctors. People who realized their gravity and who didn’t know if they would ever wake up” added Galbiati, recalling the importance of alliances between people and respect for roles. Yet, shortly after the hardest wave of the pandemic, many ”ridden the distrust in science,” he added, referring to the debate on vaccines. ”Yet the collaboration was there and we saw it here in Casatenovo. Many have worked hard, including Civil Protection, Red Cross, Oratories, Caritas: the world of volunteering has done a lot and has been a real asset for everyone”.
Professor Marcella Molteni and councilor Gaetano Caldirola
The interventions of many of the protagonists of those days closed the intense evening, promoted by the Municipality of Casatenovo on the initiative of Professor Marcella Molteni who as a citizen proposed to organize that moment in memory of those who didn’t make it, so as not to disperse the memory and pain of a dramatic period for everyone.
Tags: Casatenovo remembers Covid victims hosting doctors Bergamo hospital
