(by Pasquale Lapadula) (ANSA) – NAPLES, NOV 15 – A heartfelt appeal for his little patients, due to lack of staff, with the fear and concrete risk of not being able to help them adequately. Adriana Franzese, head of Pediatric Diabetology of the Federico II University Hospital of Naples and professor of Pediatrics at the same University, asks to be heard for the serious situation she manages, also aggravated by the Covid emergency. The small patients of Campania with type 1 diabetes refer to the pediatric Diabetology of Federico II (Regional Center). And in the pandemic era, small patients with Covid 19 viral infection are also converging. In the Regional Center for Pediatric Diabetology only two ‘structured’ doctors must manage six to seven hundred diabetic children, in addition to teaching and research activities typical of the University.
“We are now collapsing both due to the shortage of health personnel and the number of patients (including Covid) who continue to arrive”, says to ANSA Franzese, one of the best known experts in childhood diabetes in Italy. “Patients – he assures – are guaranteed the most up-to-date treatments and the most modern diabetes technologies that have upset the clinical approach. It is clear that only two qualified doctors (myself and another colleague) assisted by young specialists cannot handle this. amount of work”.
If we reflect on the balance sheet of existing activities, the picture is worrying. In 2020, 600 children were followed with electronic records by Federico II Pediatric Diabetology, 700 day hospitals, 100 hospitalizations for decompensated patients or patients with onset of diabetes and 300 visits made in telemedicine. In 2021, from January 1, the new children with onset of diabetes were already over 80 (age 9 months-16 years), on average very young in age, often with diabetic ketoacidosis which is the most severe form of onset. To all this are added the outpatient activities, consultancy (also for external hospitals), research, the hundreds of hospitalizations of small patients with other diseases related to diabetes such as obesity, hypoglycemia, hyperinsulinism and genetic obesity (PraderWilli syndrome). The Diabetology of Federico II of Naples is a point of reference, as well as regional, also national, as it is part of the large Italian and European centers connected to each other and, for diseases of glycemic alteration, also of the European consortium of rare diseases of endocrine area (ENDO-ERN).
La Franzese will retire in a year and launches a cry of alarm to the institutions (first of all the Campania Region and the University) so that decades of expertise do not end in thin air due to a shortage of medical personnel.
“We work with too few medical and health care personnel.
What will happen to these precious and complicated patients of ours in a year? I ask the Region and the University to intervene – he concludes – so as not to abandon all the children with diabetes 1 who need our care “.
In Italy, and therefore also in Campania, there is a significant increase in the cases of children suffering from diabetes 1. Hence the objective need to strengthen the Federico II University Center. (HANDLE).
Source From: Ansa
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