Disturbing footage has emerged showing horrific scenes inside a crowded coronavirus hospital in Italy, including what appears to be a dead body in a toilet.
The video was captured by the Cardarelli Hospital in Naples, Rosario La Monica, who fails to hide his trauma as he wanders around the crowded Emergency and Accident Department.
The body is believed to be a coronavirus patient who was waiting for examination in the infected ward when he collapsed and died.
Mister Lamonica can be heard saying, “This man is dead, this is Cardarelli Hospital. Here we are, the emergency department.”
He focuses his camera on one patient, and says: “This woman is in her own health and stool, we don’t know if she is dead or alive.
“The woman is there, we know nothing.”
The 30-year-old said he took the footage to show people just how bad things are.
“When I asked for help, no one listened to me,” he told the Italian news agency ANSA. “There were also those who told me, ‘I take care of your own business.'”
Mr Lamonica was in hospital for two days after testing positive for the Coronavirus and having breathing problems.
He added, “This (dead) person was with me in the room with old men.
“The situation in Naples and in many regions of Campania is out of control … the central government needs to intervene because there is no time left,” said Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio from the region.
In response to Mr. La Monica’s video, Mr. Di Maio wrote on Facebook: “The video clip of the patient found dead in the bathroom of Cardarelli Hospital is shocking.
“Life and the right to health of every individual citizen is a priority that must be protected above all else. And if local authorities fail to do so, the state must do so.
“I have remained silent until now, out of respect for all institutions, but now we must intervene immediately, especially in the south, which may collapse,” he added.
Health officials said they are investigating the man’s death, but according to Mr. Di Maio, this was the latest horrific incident he heard about in the last days of Campania.
Using an algorithm based on 21 indicators, Campania was placed in the least dangerous “yellow zone”.
But questions have now been raised about whether the data are reliable, with the Rome Ministry of Health appointing investigators to review the situation.
Italy recorded 636 more deaths on Thursday, and 37,978 new cases.
The country recorded 43,589 deaths, making it the sixth worst affected country in the world.
Italy was the first European country to be hit hard by the Covid-19 cases, which currently number 1,066,401 – half of these infections have appeared in the past 19 days.
Hospitals across the country have reportedly been struggling to cope, but the poorer south appears to have been hit even worse.
On the southern island of Sicily, the mayor of Palermo warned Monday that his region would face “inevitable massacre” as casualties there increased.
“The North has always had a well-equipped health system spread throughout the region,” Carlo Palermo, president of the IAU-Asumed Doctors Syndicate, told Reuters.
The situation there may not be optimal, but the south by comparison is a wasteland. “
In Naples, footage shows patients being treated in cars with oxygen being given and placed in drops while they wait to be hospitalized.
