Yes to the criminal shield for doctors and nurses in the pandemic period. What is it about

The vaccinators, doctors and nurses, are exempt from criminal, civil and accounting responsibilities related to the national immunization campaign, unless gross negligence. The criminal shield, a measure that is part of the Covid decree, was approved by the Senate with 144 votes in favor, 25 against and 3 abstentions (by June 1st it will have to pass to the House for conversion into law). The crimes of manslaughter and culpable personal injury committed by vaccinators «are punishable only in cases of gross negligence».

Healthcare professionals had requested this measure after suspected deaths of people vaccinated with AstraZeneca in recent months, before the EMA ruled out correlations between thrombosis and the drug. The doctors they cannot choose which vaccine to administer: therefore they cannot even answer for any adverse reactions to the drug. However, they remain responsible for any damage resulting from serum overdosage, for the patient’s failure to observe the patient after the inoculation or for the choice of the wrong area of ​​the body for the injection: these are the cases of “gross negligence”.

The shield also protects healthcare professionals from the events that occurred in the Covid-19 emergency phase: for the assessment of the degree of guilt, “the judge takes into account, among the factors that can exclude the seriousness, the limited scientific knowledge at the time of the fact on SARS-Cov-2 diseases and appropriate therapies, as well as the scarcity of human and material resources actually available in relation to the number of cases to be treated, as well as the lower level of experience and technical knowledge possessed by non-specialized personnel employed to deal with the emergency ».

Because, as the senator of the 5 Star Movement Elvira Evangelista, vice president of the Justice Commission of Palazzo Madama and first signatory of the amendment, “the situation and context cannot be ignored in which our health professionals have worked during this year to deal with Covid-19 and it is not fair that operators find themselves paying for faults that are not theirs. This is also in the interest of citizens who must be able to count on doctors who are not terrified of doing their job ».

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