Cagliari: The hospital detention department is born inside the Santissima Trinità hospital in Cagliari

After years of waiting, the hospital detention department is born inside the Santissima Trinità hospital in Cagliari. The Regional Council today approved the resolution presented by the Health Councillor, Armando Bartolazzi, for the establishment of a department specifically dedicated to prisoners who require prolonged care in the case of complex scheduled pathologies not requiring emergency intervention, for which specific life-saving protocols continue to exist. The department will have four beds. “It is with great satisfaction that we can announce the achievement of an important goal, on which the Department has been working for some time together with the interested institutions, category representatives and associations. The right to health is sacrosanct and must be guaranteed through access to care even for those who are in prison”, comments the health commissioner.

The definition of the regional penitentiary network dates back to 2017, which included a hub and spoke service with dedicated rooms or a hospital ward for inmates. This second option had so far been implemented only with the activation of the specific department at the Santissima Annunziata hospital in Sassari, which completed the experiment 7 years ago.

“In Cagliari, however, the detention ward identified and already equipped at the time inside the Santissima Trinità Hospital continued to be used for purposes other than its intended purpose.“, He explains Bartolazzi, who continues: “this led to major critical issues, with extremely uncomfortable situations in which the interned patients were admitted to rooms shared with other patients and with an increase in risks also for the prison surveillance staff, who are required to guard the hospitalised prisoners“. The latest episode is news from the last few hours, right in the Cagliari garrison of Is Mirrionis.

“We are certain that with this measure we will make an important contribution to strengthening the regional prison health network and to raising the safety standards required for patients and prison surveillance personnel who operate as a hospital garrison. It will now be up to the ASL 8 of Cagliari to implement the measure through specific organizational and management methods".