A woman in Italy who lost her father to coronavirus without saying a final farewell is campaigning for change.
Sergio Dalla Volta — one of Italy’s leading cardiologists — died at Padua hospital at the end of August.
But measures implemented to stop the spread of COVID-19 meant the 92-year-old’s daughters couldn’t visit him in hospital.
Dalla Volta — like many other coronavirus victims — died without any family beside him, despite Maurizia and Alessandra living just five minutes away from where he was being treated. Now the pair are hoping hospitals across Italy will change their policies.
“If our suffering may help others not to experience the same harrowing pain it would not be in vain and would soothe our wounds which I would not know how to soothe otherwise,” Maurizia told Euronews.
Maurizia and Alessandra have already won a concession from Padua hospital and they now want others elsewhere in the country to follow suit.
Luciano Flor, the director of Padua Hospital, said: “A regulation must be implemented in our hospital imposing that in some specific conditions, such as [the] risk of death, relatives must always be able to visit their loved ones whilst they are still alive.”
Maurizia said she is fighting her battle not only for patients and their relatives but also for nurses and doctors who have to bear the psychological burden of being the only point of contact between patients and relatives outside.
She said medical workers are “angels, they do everything to relieve the psychological suffering of all, but at the cost of taking it upon themselves”.
