During this period of resurgence of COVID-19 and seasonal flu, the outpatient clinic for cancer patients and vulnerable patients at the Sant'Anna e San Sebastiano National Hospital in Caserta is operating at full capacity. The clinic provides SARS-CoV-2 prophylaxis, both with monoclonal antibodies and vaccines, and influenza and herpes zoster vaccines.
The initiative was born within the framework of a project financed by the Caserta section “Valentina Picazio” of AIL, the Italian Association against Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma, and is aimed at patients being treated at the AORN of Caserta, belonging to the operational units of Hematology with an Oncological Focus, Medical Oncology, SATTE (Service for Liver Transplant Patients and Transplant Candidates), Geriatrics, Nephrology and Dialysis, Rheumatology, Infectious and Tropical Diseases limited to subjects affected by HIV.
The clinic, located on the fourth floor of building F in the premises of the Oncology Department, is accessed upon prescription from the hospital doctor of the patient's reference operating unit, who is responsible for identifying, selecting and comprehensively informing the user eligible for prophylaxis(es).
The activities of the outpatient project are coordinated, as managers, by the director of the Oncology Department, Ferdinando Frigeri, and by the acting director of the UOC for Organization and Programming of Hospital and Health Services, Alfredo Matano, who highlight that the project responds to the principle of complete and global care of the sick person and is structured to simultaneously pursue multiple objectives:
1) To ensure that fragile patients are protected from possible complications caused by ongoing therapeutic treatments or by the pathology from which they suffer, through prophylaxis;
2) Reduce, through the prevention of infectious complications in vulnerable patients, visits to the Emergency Room, with a positive impact on the scheduling of hospital admissions and the management of hospital beds;
3) Ensure prophylaxis also for onco-haematological patients treated at home by the Hospital Trust's specialists as part of the continuity of care program;
4) Offer fragile patients the peace of mind that comes from the fact that the prescription and provision of prophylaxis are entrusted to the same medical-nursing team that treats them for their underlying pathologies.
“It is very important,” says Dr. Frigeri, “to vaccinate cancer patients against preventable diseases. Infections, in their case, are always lurking. These are subjects in whom both the tumor and the therapies contribute to lowering the immune defenses.”
The Management of the AORN of Caserta, in thanking the AIL for the historic collaboration in support of onco-hematological patients, emphasizes that the synergic partnership between the teamwork of the hospital operating units and the contribution of the voluntary associations of the territory constitutes a precious formula for implementing effective health pathways for the benefit of patients' health.
