Anna Rovati has been working as a psychologist with Soleterre already for a year, in the Pediatric Oncohematology department of the Policlinico San Matteo Hospital in Pavia.
She is also one of the first psychologists who have accepted to be at the forefront against the Coronavirus, by supporting doctors, healthcare operators, COVID-19 patients and their families.
Let’s hear it from Anna, the conditions in which she has met COVID-19 patients…
“Hi, I’m Anna and I’ve been working with Soleterre for a year now here in the pediatric oncohematology ward.
As soon as the COVID emergency started, Damiano and I immediately committed ourselves to be present here in the hospital and therefore continue our work alongside the operators involved in this emergency. So we took action and immediately contacted the involved wards (First Aid, infectious diseases, the two ICU and recently the medical clinic).
A great job was done in a very short time and is still going on. It is continuing and we have formed a team of enthusiastic colleagues, with a great desire to do, a great desire to be present and to support these people because there is a great need.
Damiano and I have collected at first sight the testimonies not only of the primaries, but also of the doctors involved in these departments. Immediately there emerged the isolation in which these patients live, both a physical and an affective isolation, the impossibility of having contact with their families, a human contact, I would like to say.
The testimony of a doctor, who was on the front line in these wards, said that the gesture of a patient caressing his visor had made him very tender, because they have these protective devices that make them almost unrecognizable, and just as these patients they really need contact too. The operators themselves need to touch them, caress them.
This was a very strong first impression that makes you understand just how the disease is experienced, both by the patient and the family member and by the caregiver next to them”.
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