From doctor to patient, a geriatrician says catching COVID-19 was like 'falling out of control'

Record ID: 1468606

  • Title: From doctor to patient, a geriatrician says catching COVID-19 was like 'falling out of control'
  • Date: 9th April 2020
  • Summary: VARESE, ITALY (APRIL 9, 2020) (REUTERS) PATIENT LYING IN BED VIEW OF PATIENTS / HEALTH WORKER GIVING MASK TO COLLEAGUE GERIATRICIAN, DOCTOR FEDERICO DE LUCA, LYING IN BED DE LUCA LOOKING ON DE LUCA'S HAND (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) GERIATRICIAN, DOCTOR FEDERICO DE LUCA, SAYING: "My name is Federico De Luca, I am 44, I was born in Milan and I live in Albino, in the province of Bergamo. I am a doctor and I work in a residential care home so I deal exclusively with elderly people. My life is divided mostly between work and family and I have a nice and large family at home and apart from what happened to me, I hope to go home soon because I have a good life waiting for me back there." BREATHING TUBE (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) GERIATRICIAN, DOCTOR FEDERICO DE LUCA, SAYING: "The second day, in just 48 hours, to use a metaphor, it was like, I was falling out of control. It was like the ground just opened up under my feet and I was falling vertically towards the disease." BREATHING TUBE / DE LUCA LOOKING ON HUMIDIFIER WITH STERILE WATER (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) GERIATRICIAN, DOCTOR FEDERICO DE LUCA, SAYING: "After a while, an ambulance arrived. I live on the second floor and in my building, there is no lift. I was unable to go down the stairs alone because I was so weak and they needed to move me with difficulty using a stretcher-chair. I repeat, it was a condition - let's say - of a continuous fall, my condition worsened so much that even my mind was unable to process the problem. If it had happened a week before maybe my mind could have understood what was happening but instead, my condition worsened so quickly that I was put on an oxygen mask on and I was brought in as a red code to the hospital of Seriate." SIGN READING (Italian) "WARNING, BIOHAZARD AREA" (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) GERIATRICIAN, DOCTOR FEDERICO DE LUCA, SAYING: "My only message is that all health workers should be protected as much as possible with protective gear, given the work they do and the risks related to this work, risks that can even lead to death. So all healthcare professionals should be given protection. If possible protection should also be given to all positives cases and to those who are potentially at risk of contracting this coronavirus." VARIOUS OF HEALTH WORKERS WEARING PROTECTIVE CLOTHING CHECKING PATIENT HEALTH WORKER WEARING PROTECTIVE CLOTHING LOOKING AT PATIENT VARIOUS OF HEALTH WORKERS WEARING PROTECTIVE MASKS LOOKING AT MONITOR (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER OF VARESE HOSPITAL, LORENZO MAFFIOLI, SAYING: "It was an emergency that nobody was prepared for, each of us tried to do their best and worked according to their own experience. For this reason, maybe in some places there were some failures but the health care system in Lombardy is extremely strong and with a tsunami like this, it has responded in an overall excellent way." VARIOUS OF HEALTH WORKERS WEARING PROTECTIVE CLOTHING GIVING INJECTION (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) DIRECTOR OF PULMONARY MEDICINE UNIT OF VARESE HOSPITAL, CINZIA GAMBARINI, SAYING: "Now everything seems very simple. We were hit by a tsunami that nobody expected. It was absolutely unpredictable, we were unprepared to face such a great emergency. I can say my hospital tried to be ready even before the shockwave really hit us. In January we already had meetings to be prepared. The problem of protective clothing is still a real problem. There are days when protective clothing is scarce but I can say that in my unit and in the hospital none of us have ever entered the rooms of patients without wearing the necessary protection. Even if it is sometimes hard to find them." DRIPPER PATIENT LYING IN BED / BREATHING TUBE URINE BAG (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) DIRECTOR OF INTENSIVE CARE UNIT OF VARESE HOSPITAL, PROFESSOR PAOLO SEVERGNINI, SAYING: "I think this pandemic will leave a mark. Life will resume in the usual way but it has left us with a great experience. It is still to this day leaving us with this experience which I hope we will treasure in the future so that if anything like this happens again we will be more prepared than we were initially mainly because of the explosive nature (of the disease) in Italy and in particular in Lombardy." PATIENT LYING IN BED HEALTH WORKERS WEARING PROTECTIVE MASKS TALKING PATIENT'S FOOT VARIOUS OF HEALTH WORKER REMOVING PROTECTIVE SUIT DRAWING ON WALL READING (Italian) "TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO SAVE LIVES"
  • Embargoed: 23rd April 2020 16:31
  • Keywords: COVID-19 Intensive care unit Italy Lombardy region Varese coronavirus patient doctor health negative test
  • Location: VARESE, ITALY
  • City: VARESE, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVA001C8RTJRB
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT
    Doctor Federico De Luca, 44, sits up in a hospital bed and breaths almost normally, he no longer gasps for air, battling for his life after contracting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
    De Luca is a geriatrician who had been treating elderly patients near Bergamo in Lombardy, the Italian region hardest hit by the coronavirus epidemic.
    After being admitted to the Circolo hospital in Varese, De Luca, a father of seven children, spent three weeks in intensive care, connected to machines and unconscious.
    The doctor was aware at the beginning of March when he started to monitor a slight temperature that he may have contracted the coronavirus disease but he wasn't sure where he had picked it up. He was not prepared for how quickly the virus would take hold of his body and leave him struggling for air.
    "The second day, in just 48 hours, to use a metaphor, it was like, I was falling out of control," he said.
    "It was like the ground just opened up under my feet and I was falling vertically towards the disease," De Luca explained speaking through his mask.
    Eventually an ambulance was called for the doctor and he was rushed to hospital where he was entered as a 'code red', the most serious.
    A total of 17,127 people have died from the virus in Italy, more than anywhere in the world, with Lombardy accounting for 55% of the tally. The region also accounts for 39% of the country's 135,586 confirmed cases.
    Many have said the region was ill-prepared and left their medical staff unprotected.
    De Luca agrees, protection is one of the most important issues to deal with.
    "My only message is that all health workers should be protected as much as possible with protective gear, given the work they do and the risks related to this work, risks that can even lead to death," he said.
    "If possible protection should also be given to all positives cases and to those who are potentially at risk of contracting this coronavirus," he added.
    De Luca will soon be allowed to leave hospital and return to his family but there are still many questions as to why so many medical staff have become infected in Lombardy.
    A damning letter by senior doctors, including the heads of 11 provincial health authorities within Lombardy, sent this week said failures in the region's health system had exacerbated the greatest emergency Italy has faced since World War Two.
    The doctors cited two main failings of local authorities, the lack of protective clothing for medical staff and a lack of good data and testing that may have helped keep the number of deaths down.
    "It was an emergency that nobody was prepared for, each of us tried to do their best and worked according to their own experience," said Lorenzo Maffioli, Chief Medical Officer of the Circolo hospital in Varese, which treats 300 COVID-19 patients.
    "For this reason, maybe in some places there were some failures but the health care system in Lombardy is extremely strong and with a tsunami like this, it has responded in an overall excellent way" he said.
    The Circolo hospital is part of a group of seven hospitals in the Lombardy area who have been lucky enough to have had adequate protective clothing, even though it was not always easy to find.
    "We were hit by a tsunami that nobody expected," said Director of Pulmonary medicine Cinzia Gambarini.
    "It was absolutely unpredictable, we were unprepared to face such a great emergency," she said.
    "I can say my hospital tried to be ready even before the shockwave really hit us. In January we already had meetings to be prepared. The problem of protective clothing is still a real problem. There are days when protective clothing is scarce but I can say that in my unit and in the hospital none of us have ever entered the rooms of patients without wearing the necessary protection," Gambarini said.
    The National Federation of Doctors says 94 medics have so far died in the outbreak, many in Lombardy. But some doctors hope that the lessons learned from the outbreak will mean they will never be caught out unprepared again.
    "I think this pandemic will leave a mark," said Director of the Intensive Care Unit at the Varese hospital Professor Paolo Severgnini.
    "Life will resume in the usual way but it has left us with a great experience. It is still to this day leaving us with this experience which I hope we will treasure in the future so that if anything like this happens again we will be more prepared than we were initially mainly because of the explosive nature (of the disease) in Italy and in particular in Lombardy" Severgnini said.
    (Production: Alex Fraser, Oriana Boselli, Eleanor Biles)
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