Naples: A video showing a man lying allegedly dead on a bathroom floor inside the emergency ward of a hospital in Naples went viral in Italy this week, causing a nationwide outcry.
The video, shot on a phone by 30-year-old Rosario La Monica inside the Cardarelli hospital, also shows what appears to be an overcrowded emergency area with patients very close to each other, lying on stretchers, and left without medical assistance.
La Monica explained to the AP that he filmed the video on Wednesday while hospitalised with COVID-19 symptoms, after having spent the night at the Cardarelli hospital's emergency room.
He claimed that given the lack of medical assistance, he helped many people when he got up on Wednesday morning to ask for help with his exhausted oxygen tank.
La Monica told AP he saw an elderly man in a poor condition go to the bathroom alone, and he checked on him after 10 minutes to see if he was OK.
After not seeing the man come out of the bathroom, La Monica checked on him again, and there he was lying on the floor.
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Naples' region governor, Vincenzo De Luca, on Thursday criticised the author of the video, explaining he filmed the scene of the man lying on the bathroom floor after a nurse had already checked on him, and had gone to ask for help and get a stretcher.
De Luca called the video "ignoble", explaining such an episode could have happened in any hospital in the world.
He said the hospital would submit the findings of an investigation to authorities.
Also on Thursday, Giuseppe Longo, Director-General of the Cardarelli hospital, condemned the video.
Hospitals across Italy have been overwhelmed in the past week as the number of infections has shot up, with facilities in the southern part of the country notorious for being underfunded and overcrowded.
Italy's day-to-day caseload of confirmed new COVID-19 infections climbed considerably higher on Thursday, as did the number of coronavirus patients needing ICU beds, which doctors say might not have enough specialists available to care for them.
A day after Italy's total of known cases in the pandemic surpassed one million, Thursday saw 37,978 more infections confirmed, according to Health Ministry figures.
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Government and health officials were analysing data to see if the hard-strapped Campania region, which includes Naples, should be declared a red-zone, banning most people from entering or leaving towns within it.
Naples residents say they have resorted to calling private ambulances because the public health service fleet isn't always available.
Ambulances sometimes park for hours outside hospitals in the Naples area as well as elsewhere in Italy because emergency rooms don't immediately have space for the patients inside the vehicles.
With 636 additional deaths, Italy's overall known toll in the pandemic rose to 43,589 on Thursday.
AP
