Monday 8 February 2021

The City Where Ambulances,

and doctors fear to tread,


when they have their blue lights on, photograph AKuptsova/Pixabay, one traumatized ambulance driver told Italian media that he was driving an ambulance with its siren on, when he found himself flanked by two men on a motorcycle, one of whom banged on the ambulance window and threatened to kill him. The distraught ambulance crew ended up calling police, asking them to provide safe escort out of the neighbourhood in question, Haven’t you understood you cannot use your siren here? Turn it off or we’ll shoot you,” one of the armed men allegedly told the ambulance driver, and why will doctors and ambulance drivers be killed by the mafia? because the noise is too similar to that of police sirens, and interferes with “business”, apparently as they disturb drug-pushers and scare away customers, both of which often mistake them for police. Such cases have been reported for years, but the problems have intensified recently, due to the Covid-19 crisis,  Manuel Ruggiero is a 42-year-old emergency doctor and the head of a local branch of an organization fighting violence against medical professionals, has confirmed that there are indeed neighbourhoods in Naples where the ambulances don’t use their sirens and light signals for fear of mafia retaliation, note to self, do not get taken ill in Naples.


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