Video footage showed a corpse scattered inside the ward of a makeshift hospital, as Italy struggled to fight the epidemic.
Naples health officials are investigating the death of a man believed to be suffering from coronavirus.
The photographer is heard to say: ‘This man is dead, this is Carderelli Hospital. We are here, the emergency department.
‘This woman has her own urine and feces, we don’t know if she’s dead or alive. Ladies over there, we know nothing. ‘
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Italian Foreign Minister Luigi de Maio said he had heard the video from the Campania region, his birthplace, in recent days.
He said: ‘The situation is out of control in many areas of Naples and Campania. The central government needs to intervene because there is no time. ‘
Due to the fact that the coronavirus is relatively undetected from the first wave compared to the north, the south of Italy is now being affected by the epidemic.
The number of cases nationwide rose to more than a million on Wednesday – half of these infections in just 19 days.
The official death toll in Italy now stands at 43,589 and is the sixth highest in the world.
Hospitals across the country have struggled to manage skyrocketing cases, but the poorest in the South seem to be particularly ill-equipped to cope even after a summer stay to strengthen their summer defenses.
In Naples, patients have been given oxygen and drips through their car windows to wait for a coronavirus test or to be hospitalized.
Further south, on the island of Sicily, the mayor of Palemo warned on Monday that his region was facing an ‘inevitable genocide’ as the infection continued to grow.
Carlo Palermo, head of the Anao-Incomplete Doctors Union, said: ‘The north has always had well-equipped health systems throughout the region.
“The situation there may not be favorable, but by comparison the south is a garbage dump.”
The latest official figures for 2018 show this split, with annual per capita health spending being 2, 2,054 (1, 1,843) in the northern Liguria region and € 1,973 (1, 1,770) in neighboring Emilia-Romagna.
In Campania it was the lowest in Italy at 1,697 (1,522) and in nearby Calabria it was 1, 70,706 (1, 1,531).
But it’s not just a question of money, because poor management has taken a heavy toll in the South as well.
The issue came to light this month when Calabria’s health commissioner was interviewed on state television and initially denied any responsibility for adopting the long-delayed emergency plan to address the coronavirus crisis.
Retired General Savario Cotiselli drafted the letter from the Ministry of Health to substantiate his statement, which established the guidelines.
Yet on camera, the truth slowly spread over him that he was really responsible for drawing the plan. The next day he resigned.
At the beginning of the year there were 146 intensive care beds in Calabria. The Roman government promised to double the capacity of their emergency rooms in the summer, but by the end of October the number had risen to 154.
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When the national government divided the country into three tiers this month to reflect various national health risks, it immediately placed Calabria in the ‘red zone’ and imposed a partial lockdown.
Using an algorithm based on 21 indicators, Campania was surprisingly placed in the ‘yellow zone’ of the lowest risk.
The decision raised questions about whether the region was providing reliable data, and Rome’s health ministry sent inspectors to review the situation.
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