One hospital comes up with a way family can hug Covid-19 patients

Alida (left) and Salvatore, who has Covid-19, embrace through a plastic sheet during their 50th wedding anniversary in the so-called hugging room at the Nuovo Ospedale dei Castelli. — dpa

Covid-19 patients don’t just suffer from the often severe symptoms of the infectious disease, but also from isolation.

To allow for more close contact with family and friends, one hospital is now relying on a creative solution.

In Italy, where simple physical gestures of affection play a large role in everyday life, a hospital south of Rome has set up its own hugging room.

Healthcare professionals in the Nuovo Ospedale dei Castelli in Ariccia have hung a special plastic sheet in a room, allowing visitors and patients to safely embrace.

Understanding the psychological impact of the pandemic and how a simple hug can go a long way in a time of physical distancing, the healthcare workers even designed the plastic partition to cater for a proper embrace, adding tube-like sleeves for the arms.

The space also allows relatives to spend time close to loved ones who are recovering - such as the couple Salvatore and Alida who recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

When the hugging room was first presented some time ago, doctors speculated that the increased feelings of happiness and security could allow for the healing process to be accelerated.

The cruel necessity of distancing from dying patients was already a topic during the height of the first wave of coronavirus infections, Europe’s first major outbreak of Covid-19.

Red Cross workers in Italy’s virus-hit Lombardy region were not able to get or give comfort because of strict hygienic precautions, Red Cross chief Francesco Rocca said last March (2020), telling the story of a worker who couldn’t hug her dying mother, two metres away from her.

Ambulance teams picking up Covid-19 patients from their homes also experienced how their relatives could not bid them farewell.

Wearing protective overalls, the paramedics also could not approach the grieving relatives to comfort them.

At the height of the first wave, some families opted against sending patients ill with Covid-19 to hospital for this reason, according to Giorgio Gori, the mayor of Bergamo in northern Lombardy.

“In some cases, the families themselves prefer for them to stay home because they are afraid that they will not be able to say goodbye to their loved ones,” he said. – dpa