Luigi Cavanna, a door-to-door doctor working to save Covid-19 patients.

Starting from humanity, and from healthcare on a human and patient scale.
Luigi Cavanna, head of hematology-oncology at Piacenza Hospital, has always believed in the power of humanity, and when it came to translating into facts what we as a society have learned, he did not hold back.

For this reason, every morning at 7:30 a.m. he arrives at the ward, visits his 22 patients, and by 10 a.m., he's ready for his daily round of house calls, armed with ultrasound machines, swab tests, and tablets. He does this for two reasons: first, he confirmed to the newspaper La Repubblica, "if everyone came to the hospital, the system would collapse," and second, because "no one should die alone."

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HOME DOCTOR CORONAVIRUS

Sixty years old and having spent so much time in the ward dealing with dark and terrible illnesses, even during the darkest days of the national lockdown, he dressed up as an astronaut and decided to go directly to patients' homes to provide earlier treatment, facilitate access to medications, and, above all, offer hope and a hug to the many coronavirus patients self-isolating at home. Thus, door to door, he followed 270 cases, mostly elderly men and women, with fever, muscle aches, a cough, and other first-aid symptoms, dressed in a mask, face shield, disposable suit, gloves, and cap. He carried with him, among other supplies, an ultrasound machine, a portable ECG machine, a pulse oximeter, a swab kit, and medications—hydroxychloroquine, antivirals, antibiotics, and cortisone. In the first-aid kit, however, he also found moments of listening, reassurance, and comfort, for he opened the door to him, suffering and almost fearful, welcoming the doctors into his home like saviors.

Dr. Cavanna had the idea of ​​returning to emergency home medicine in the hell of the emergency room in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic: The hospital wards had almost all been converted into intensive care units, there was no more space or beds available, the shock wave had hit with a force that was difficult to describeThe patients followed the procedure: 118, ambulance, emergency room, arriving at the hospital already debilitated, with symptoms requiring intensive care, after days of malaise and fever. The standard for hospitalized patients was two oral medications: hydroxychloroquine and antivirals, combined with oxygen and supportive care. In fact, there was no drug that could not be administered at home, well before hospitalization became necessary, thus maximizing its effectiveness.Only in this way, Luigi Cavanna reasoned, could the hospital's congestion be avoided. So, why wait? A quick meeting with the health management and, around mid-March, together with the head nurse Gabriele Cremona, he had assembled a home emergency response team.

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Door-to-Door Doctor in Piacenza Due to Coronavirus

With excellent results, especially in terms of humanity: of the 270 patients treated at home, only 5% required intensive care and therefore hospitalization, and no one died. But what cannot be quantified is the relief from loneliness, fear, and grief that doctors brought to the patients' homes. Sometimes, as Cavanna himself confided in an interview with Corriere, "Some had just lost a husband, a brother, a son... We often found ourselves crying with them. They knew nothing about the funeral, they had no further news of the family member who ended up in the hospital."

A thoroughly successful experiment, therefore, which has led Dr. Cavanna to become a worldwide example of good healthcare and the need to strengthen home care to reach those unable to independently access the emergency room, clinic, or doctor's office, such as the elderly, who are often dependent on others. Time magazine has chosen to put his face on its cover, a symbol of hope, good medicine, and, above all, a much-needed return to listening and humanity. To restart, we need the certainty of a connection between medicine and the community, that no one is left alone or behind. Regardless of the coronavirus, that's humanity.

(Featured image from ilmiogiornale.net // Photo credits: My Newspaper)

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