'Apartheid' at Italian hospital

[emad]

'Apartheid' at Italian hospital

John Hooper in Rome
Saturday July 30, 2005
The Guardian

An Italian hospital has come under attack for allegedly practising obstetric "apartheid" after it was reported that Italian and non-Italian women were being put into different wards to give birth.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper claimed that the head of the department, Gioacchino La Rosa, had made a "choice without precedent in Italy" to separate expectant mothers according to their ethnic origins.

It said Italians had been put with Italians, but members of immigrant communities too had been put with their compatriots in the newly refurbished maternity unit.

An official in the maternity department at the Cazzavillan hospital in Arzignano in the north-east of Italy said yesterday that the report was "without foundation".
The official said any further comment would have to come from Dr La Rosa, but he could not be contacted.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1539104,00.html

[sakabatou]

1. What a world, what a world...

[DemBones DemBones]

2. I've been to Italy many times and my husband once lived there.

In our experience, Italians are not racist.

If they are grouping women by ethnicity, perhaps it's so new mothers can talk with other new mothers in their own native language. I can see that that would be more comfortable than sharing a room or ward with other new mothers with whom you can barely communicate.