Amnesty International calls for probe into Covid deaths in Italian care homes

During the first wave of contagion, many residents of elderly care facilities in Lombardy were not even taken to the hospital because there was no room for them.

Elderly people waiting for the Covid-19 vaccine at the Don Orione rest home in Rome in January 2020. Picture: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file

Amnesty International is calling for an independent parliamentary inquiry into Covid-19 deaths in Italian nursing homes and reports of retaliation against nursing home staff who spoke out about unsafe conditions there.

Amnesty based its findings on interviews with 34 health care workers, as well as union leaders and lawyers. A third of the workers “raised concerns about a climate of fear and retaliation in their workplace”, Amnesty said in a statement on Friday.