In a letter sent to our editorial staff, as well as to the health and administrative management of the ASL Salerno, Mrs Teresa Avallone recounts his dramatic experience at theSalerno hospital “Saint John of God and Ruggi of Aragon”. After a domestic accident that caused a trimalleolar fracture in her foot, Mrs. Avallone’s journey was marked by medical complications, infections and carelessness on the part of healthcare personnel. Despite the humanity and competence of some operators, her story highlights serious shortcomings in the hospital system. Below, her full story.
“Dear Sirs,
Forgive me if I take up some of your precious time, but set aside a little time to read what happened to me at the San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggì d’Aragona Hospital in Salerno. On December 2, 2023, I fell in the bathroom at home and, having fractured the malleolus of my right foot, I was taken by ambulance to the emergency room of the hospital indicated above. It was a closed displaced trimalleolar fracture.
I was given a plaster knee-high to keep until I was admitted for the surgery. The cast was applied tightly and as a result I had two huge blisters on both sides of my foot. Blisters are bubbles filled with water, like those caused by tight shoes. The operation could not be performed because the blisters had to heal, otherwise an infection could have developed.
I was given irons that protruded from my foot, similar to small television antennas. After a month with that pain in my foot, still precariously balanced on my only healthy leg, in early January I was hospitalized again to perform the “reparative” operation, but this time I contracted Staphylococcus aureus in the wound, so this last one, instead of healing, it was going into necrosis.
Only thanks to Doctor Maurizio de Cicco, who saw me at the first check-up at the orthopedics clinic at the hospital, I avoided disastrous outcomes. He cleaned my wound, had me take a swab, through which he confirmed that the bacterium was staphylococcus aureus, I was prescribed two types of targeted antibiotics, but above all he advised me to have hyperbaric chamber sessions to help the wound to heal and rebuild the tissue which, together with the missing skin, had created a real crater on the foot.
The vulnology department, in addition to the hyperbaric chamber, also gave me advanced medications. It’s the only new thing I found at Ruggi d’Aragona; trained doctors and nurses, very kind but above all of a unique humanity: angels. Apart from this one positive note, my misadventures didn’t end there.
When putting the bones of the fractured foot together, they put the tibia out of alignment with the fibula, which is why there is a large protrusion on the inside of my foot that makes the foot appear crooked when in fact it is the tibia that protrudes; every time they took x-rays the radiology technicians asserted that the fracture was consolidating well while in reality I have a crippled foot, a wound that is an eyesore but above all when walking I have pain in my foot and leg.
The two hospitalizations I had were also a nightmare: the nurses in the orthotraumatology department are completely insensitive to any type of suffering, you call and they come very conveniently, furthermore very elderly ladies were hospitalized in the department due to broken femurs. most of them, who screamed all night without interruption in the most absolute indifference of the nurses. Of these I only have to thank one and his name is Roberto, but I don’t know his surname. I complained after the second operation because of the cast they had put on me again because this time too it felt tight and only Roberto, when his shift began, listened to me and widened my cast, agreeing that I had been put “a not very narrow”. A nurse was confronted with my complaints about the cast that I just couldn’t stand, he said I needed to go to neurology.
I also want to express an opinion on the food. Last thing for those in hospital but absolutely inedible; I remember a hamburger that looked like a piece of coal, hard, dry, dried up, but the other “dishes” were no different either. And even water was given to us carefully: only two half-liter bottles a day.
I pay my respects and wish you good health.”
