ROME, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Senators probing "intolerable" hospital emergency room conditions in Rome said Monday a comatose woman spent four days on an ER stretcher without nutrition.
The 59-year-old woman, whose name was not released, was admitted to the Umberto I hospital with a severe concussion, had only a saline drip and was tied to a stretcher with sheets ostensibly to keep her from falling off, Sens. Ignazio Marino and Domenico Gramazio told ANSA.
"Medics told us they were waiting 'at any moment' to hear whether to move her into a ward," the Italian news agency quoted the senators as saying. Marino and Gramazio also investigated the San Camillo and San Giovanni hospital ERs after Rome prosecutors Thursday ordered probes into emergency facilities at all hospitals in the city.
The inquiry was precipitated by pictures published Wednesday in a Rome newspaper displaying patients undergoing medical procedures on the floor of the San Camillo hospital, ANSA reported.
Marino and Gramazio called the situation at the Umberto I "intolerable, totally indecent."
