Dr. House (and George Clooney) where are you?

Italy is one of the 7 most industrialised countries in the world. With very few natural resources (unlike say Canada), it’s the 5th-6th economy in the world. It’s also famous for exquisite wines and Ferraris, not to mention some of the greatest fashion designers in the world (Valentino, Armani, D&G, just to name a few). Yet its (public) hospitals are still—in 2007—in shambles.

The latest comes to us from an “Espresso” (no, not the coffee but a weekly newsmagazine) report: a journalist pretended for 1 month to be part of the cleaning staff at the Umberto I university hospital in Rome, Italy’s largest (and dating back to 1904). What he uncovered is awfully depressing: cigarette butts in the tunnels (smoking in public buildings in Italy has been banned since 2005), dog excrement (or is it human?), doctors who between visiting one patient and another don’t wash their hands (thus also causing up to 7,000 deaths in 1 year’s time!) and patients who are wheeled after surgery (and still under anaesthesia!) through rooms and tunnels which are awash with litter.

This shouldn’t be too surprising as many years ago the same hospital had been blamed for housing in its tunnels (the hospital is HUGE!) illegal hawkers as well as hookers! The situation in Naples and in other Italian hospitals isn’t any better. In Naples one hospital was used as a deposit for the Camorra’s weapons while one hospital in Calabria, which was only built in 1955, has never even been opened! The south is traditionally backwards but the more “civilised” north isn’t any better: in Turin at the Molinette hospital there are signs saying that the water from sinks isn’t potable. That would also explain why patients bring alone tons and tons of bottled water when they end up in hospitals.

I myself have undergone minor surgery in three different cities in Italy: Rome, Milan and Udine. The most professional without a doubt is Udine. But the thing that surprises me the most when I go to an Italian public hospital (the private ones are much better, but you have to pay big bucks in order to get better service), is that many hospital washrooms are missing soap, toilet paper and even towels (even the paper ones are usually missing)! This shouldn’t be too surprising to readers as in Italy one of the national pastimes is stealing, and toilet paper can also be a HOT commodity (!!!).

All this would also explain why just before Christmas, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former prime minister, got a pace-maker inserted. But NOT in Italy. Where you may ask? Where else, in the U.S. (hey, he ain’t stupid)!