The CT scan, awaited for over six years, has finally become a reality at the “Caracciolo” in Agnone. It remains to be understood immediately who will have to make it work, but evidently this is not a second step, which however should not be overlooked.
Yesterday was an “important day”, as underlined by the general director of Asrem himself, Giovanni Di Santo, for the hospital in the particularly disadvantaged area of Agnone. The promises of politics and the healthcare company have materialized, albeit with a guilty multi-year delay. Like a sleepy pachyderm, Molise healthcare promises today and delivers in six years. Meanwhile, the population is decreasing and those who remain are turning elsewhere to find healthcare worthy of the name. Returning to yesterday’s good news, the 128-slice CT scan has finally been delivered, complete with regional councilors and journalists, governor Roberti and, naturally, the top management of the healthcare company present. A commercial worthy of the Istituto Luce. «An undoubtedly important day – Di Santo declared to reporters and in favor of cameras – because we are inaugurating an innovative diagnostic methodology, in line with the times: a 128-slice CT scan equipped with a reduction in the quantity of radiation and for this reason usable even by children. A CT scan that can also support weights exceeding two hundred kilograms, therefore suitable for obese patients. In short, a CT scan in step with the times which will serve to guarantee the recovery and streamlining of waiting lists on a regional basis and also active mobility towards Agnone and Molise”. About the specialized personnel capable of operating the new diagnostic machinery, the general director was not too clear: «In the meantime, we are redesigning the Molise healthcare system with a particular focus and attention on the border areas. And Agnone will certainly be valorised to the maximum, trying to bring specialists here in such a way as to guarantee a ceiling of varied healthcare offerings, also due to the need to avoid patients fleeing to other regions”. In short, nothing concrete as regards radiologists, technicians and staff capable of making the new CT scan work here at the “Caracciolo”. A problem, that of the lack of specialized personnel, which the Asrem CEO evidently plans to circumvent and overcome by resorting to technology and telemedicine in particular. «We are preparing this issue of tele-reporting, – confirmed Di Santo – and that is the possibility of carrying out on-site investigations, which will be read and analyzed at any time in other hospitals in Molise, from Termoli to Campobasso, but also Isernia, in a way such as to immediately guarantee remote reading by the specialist. Even for patients who arrive at the “Caracciolo” in the emergency room, there will always be a radiologist available who will immediately read the reports and make a diagnosis in real time.” The next step will be the mammography machine, Di Santo assured: «The new mammography machine will be available at the end of July, there is work in progress and I think that before the summer we will have diagnostic imaging equipment here that can keep pace with the times and enjoyed by the citizens of Alto Molise”. Reassurances also regarding the Dialysis service which, not only in Agnone, but in all hospitals in Molise, will face stress due to increased demand from users summer. Di Santo is also calm in relation to this problem: «There will absolutely be no shortage of services; we guarantee and will guarantee every service to citizens. We are redesigning a healthcare system that will see types of services not only hospital-based, but also territorial; so dialysis will remain as such, indeed it will be implemented and strengthened, but as a territorial activity and no longer hospital-based”. The intervention of the president of the Molise Region, the governor Francesco Roberti, was a little more political, as he dusted off the “border agreements”, even if only with a hint, as on every occasion of his visit to Agnone. «With this new technological equipment, the Agnone hospital will also be able to serve the Abruzzo region, but first and foremost to streamline the waiting lists in our region, through telemedicine and remote reporting. Regarding personnel, Molise has the highest number of nurses, according to relationships with patients and regulations, while there is undoubtedly a shortage of doctors, but it is also a recurring theme in other regions of Italy. We came to Agnone to say that we would equip the hospital with a new CT scan; today we returned to say that we have kept that promise.” Then the announcement, also awaited for years, regarding the operating rooms: «The next step will be to adapt the operating rooms of the “Caracciolo”, to be update with respect to the new regulations”. The mayor and president of the Province of Isernia, Daniele Saia, is also delighted and takes the opportunity to remove a few pebbles from his shoes, as they say. «In these six years of waiting there has always been a continuous complaint from the population, who did not believe that these things would happen. We were persevering and like the drop that digs the rock we insisted with the various regional presidents and health directors who took turns. The promises were kept and there was an acceleration with the installation of the new health management, so today Agnone has a new CT scan thanks to the Pnrr. The services do not decrease – underlined Saia – but increase and above all they complement the emergency room and therefore the safety of citizens. We will continue to monitor and stimulate the Region and Asrem so that everything that is needed and planned by the city hospital is done. The issue of missing professionals remains and I appeal to doctors who want to come here to Agnone: the equipment is now there, the will to invest in this hospital is there. The appeal is addressed to the many Agnonese doctors and professionals who currently work outside the region; we have created the conditions for them to return to Alto Molise, also to lend a hand to the population who continue to resist in the area and who see a future for these territories”. A little more critical, compared to the paeans of victory of politics and Asrem, the regional councilor Andrea Greco. «The CT scan finally arrives after six years, something that should be normal in a hospital. We will try to understand if this normality will be complete, because adequately trained personnel are needed to make this technological tool work for the benefit of both doctors and patients. It is certainly an important diagnostic tool in a disadvantaged area which remains such only on paper, but not in reality. It is necessary to immediately refunctionalize the operating rooms, a topic brought to the attention of the Regional Council several times. For dialysis, a bi-osmosis system is absolutely necessary, we have said this dozens and dozens of times, and to provide the adequate personnel to make it work, because today there are many patients who arrive in the summer and have no possibility of doing dialysis, because the department, despite having been recently modernised, cannot bear the weight of additional services. In addition to all this, there is the question of the analysis laboratory which remains weakened compared to what has been said and announced, and the age-old affair of the paediatricians. Agnone has sadly been in the national spotlight for this pediatrician issue, which affects the whole of Alto Molise; five hundred children with their families are still waiting for pediatric care. A matter that we bring again and continuously to the attention of President Roberti, also in the Regional Council.”
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