[Visiting hospitalized loved ones: a right of family members and patients]. / La visita ai propri cari ricoverati: un diritto dei familiari e dei pazienti.

. Visiting hospitalized loved ones: a right of family members and patients. In hospitals and nursing homes, regulations apply different limitations to family visits: from a total ban even for critical and/or terminal patients, or in the delivery room (new mothers give birth alone), to limiting the number of visitors (one at a time) or the type (immediate family members only), to the time for the visit (a maximum of 10 to 45 minutes); other facilities allow access for critical and/or end-of-life patients. It is time to return to pre-covid normality. The patient has the right to be accompanied, by the people who matter to her/him; the presence of family members next to the patient is not a concession but a concrete expression of the respect and attention due to the patient and his/her dignity as a human being. To continue the debate on family visits to hospitalised loved ones, we publish two letters/appeals. One, from the relatives of nursing home residents, hospitalised and dead during the pandemics, without any contact with their relatives (edited by Anchise Comitato Nazionale Famiglie RSA RSD Sanità), which in sometimes very harsh, but hardly contestable tones, at the end of August 22 launched an appeal (which is still little heeded) to the future government, to reopen the doors of hospitals and nursing homes. The other, a press release of December 2022, from the Nursing College of Trento, reaffirms the importance of family visits as a right and responsibility to guarantee the care and caring of the person being cared for, recalling the attention and responsibility of nurses, who should consider a fundamental care to be able to care for patients with the closeness of the family.

[We were told "everything will be all right", but we were afraid]. / Ci dicevano "andrà tutto bene" ma avevamo paura.

. We were told "everything will be all right", but we were afraid. INTRODUCTION: During the pandemic, the elderly were an at-risk group. OBJECTIVE: To explore how older people >65 years lived through the pandemic. METHODS: Questionnaire available online for all members of the Italian Pensioners' Union of the CGL Lombardy, which explored the state of health, activities carried out, contacts with the doctor, psychological conditions. RESULTS: 1480 people responded, in good health and with a good level of schooling. Half did not change their habits during the pandemic. For 2/3 the psychological well-being did not change, with a substantially positive vision of the future, even if 64% reported having had stress symptoms. The aspect that was missing the most, as expected, was not being able to see their families. A very common feeling (60% of respondents) was a sense of isolation and abandonment. CONCLUSIONS: As shown in other papers, older people do not seem particularly at risk of psychological problems during the pandemic.