In Italy, 61 doctors and health workers have died of coronavirus. So far, the coronavirus pandemic has affected 101,739 and killed 11,591 in Italy, the country worst hit by the virus.
The country’s National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists has compiled a list of doctors who have died during the pandemic.
The federation’s president Filippo Anelli told the Financial Times, “Our doctors have been sent to war unarmed. The dead do not make a noise. Yet, the names of our dead friends, our colleagues, put here in black and white, make a deafening noise.”
Last week, Anelli highlighted the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).
He said, “It is reasonable to assume that these events would have been largely avoidable if health workers had been correctly informed and equipped with sufficient adequate personal protective equipment: masks, gloves, disposable gowns, protective visors, which instead continue to be in short supply.”
Most doctors who died from coronavirus were in northern Italy, whether the epidemic started. Four family doctors were from Lodi and another four from Bergamo, in the Lombardy region.
The federation found that 23 of the 61 doctors were general practitioners (GPs) who are the first line of defense for people fall sick. And then there were specialists, such as pulmonologists, epidemiologists, anesthesiologist, and medical examiners.
Other health workers have also died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, including several dentists and an ophthalmologist.
In addition, the federation found that the majority of the doctors who died of COVID-19 were male. Most deaths occurred in the north of the country, but the list has shown that the virus already started spreading in the south of Italy because several doctors died in Naples. Italian public health officials noted that now the whole nation has reported coronavirus cases.
