Mayor Orlando writes to Conte and Musumeci: "Towards a massacre announced in Sicily"

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08 November 2020 "If what the media denounced today is true, about the lack of fundamental tools for the care of the sick and about the saturation of beds, we risk that in Palermo and throughout Sicily we will go towards an announced massacre. It is true that there is a lack of oxygen in the emergency rooms and that in the hospital departments they have begun to choose which patients to try to save and which not, war medicine scenarios are envisaged which, whatever the results and however mammoth it may be. 'commitment of medical and health workers, will however bring a long list of human and social grief and tragedy ".

These are the two heaviest passages of a letter that the mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, sent to the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, and to the President of the Region, Nello Musumeci, also informing the Prefect Giuseppe Forlani.

Orlando stresses that he is convinced that "the protection of life is the absolute priority for everyone", but at the same time that there are "sometimes contradictory messages that are arriving, still in these hours, and which risk becoming an obstacle to compliance with the fundamental rules of prevention. Last of the many, I must mention the announcement made to the press by the competent regional council that in Sicily the shops remain open on Sundays and the constant references to a situation that would be under control with respect to the capacity of the health system regional government to withstand the impact of hospitalizations in progress and planned ".

Orlando asked formally to '' those who have formal competence '' to evaluate '' at very short notice the adoption of measures that ensure capillaries and stringent controls and tools to strengthen the hospital system very quickly even with emergency solutions. "

Finally the mayor's appeal to institutional responsibility that leads to '' important and significant choices with times unhooked from bureaucratic logic and political belonging '' to give '' clear and univocal messages to the population, which has the right to know the real gravity of the situation and that we institutional representatives have a duty to inform and direct towards the most just choices for the good of the community ".

"In words, there are beds for Covid patients all over Sicily, but it is a pity that dozens and dozens of patients waiting for hospitalization are stationed in the emergency room and the closure of numerous hospital departments is expected to make place for the infected. Too many things do not add up, the news of these days clearly says that the situation is getting out of hand in Razza and Musumeci and that in a short time Sicily may no longer be able to guarantee ordinary care services ".

This was stated by the M5S deputies of the Health Commission of the Regional Assembly of Sicily, Giorgio Pasqua, Francesco Cappello, Salvatore Siragusa and Antonio De Luca.

"We ask Rome to send ministerial inspectors to Sicily to check what is really happening". 

"In these moments there should be widespread responsibility and instead controversies proliferate. If the Ministry of Health wants to send not one, but one hundred inspectors to Sicily, I will be the happiest. Indeed I hope so. We do not fear control of the our work, but this widespread spirit of 'all against all' is not even respectful towards the many operators who in these hours face with self-denial their mission as doctors, nurses, operators. The world is experiencing the greatest health emergency of the last 100 years. For some it is routine. I wish it could really be like this. But it isn't. "

This was stated by the councilor of the Sicily Region for Health, Ruggero Razza.