It’s not just an economic issue

It is these days the position taken by the FNOPI (National Federation of Orders of Nursing Professions) on the Italian nursing situation through a letter sent to the Government, Parliament and the Regions and spread through the main media. The strong discontent that is breathed among the professionals in the wards, after numerous grievances through the union organs, has emerged also through the representative organ of the Nurses. After two years of continuous health emergency, as the contract renewal approach seems to be less rewarding, the nursing allowance created precisely as a result of the nursing contribution in the fight against COVID, approved by the Government but never bestowed, the words of the FNOPI are a warning to immobilism and ingratitude towards those who are trying to give the best assistance. The whole world - writes the FNOPI in the open letter and in the related press release - has recognized nurses as the engine, the backbone, the future of every modern health and social system that wants to define itself such: Italy has done it only in words. We have carved into the collective memory words, values and images that speak of self-denial, ethics, sacrifice, protection, closeness, competence. We won the indifference of those who ignored our role, our university career, our specializations. The COVID, now present in everyday life for more than two years, has highlighted the need for nurses trained, specialized and satisfied with their work. In this pandemic period with regard to intensive therapies, according to data from the Ministry of Health, the number of beds has increased from 5,179 to 8,595 beds activated on 31 December 2020, with the possibility of additional 1,035 workstations, for a total of 9,630 intensive care places. Last 5 December 2021 the Ministry reported 9,064 places activated, while 793 are those that can be activated for a total of 9,857. In all these numbers presented daily along with those of the positive, the infected and the hospitalized, the nursing issue is always left in the background and it is not highlighted that the more beds are occupied, more nurses must be recruited, identified or transferred to assist patients in isolation.
Last winter (2020-21) at the height of the pandemic, the demand for beds in intensive care was so large that it was not uncommon for patients to be transferred to other hospitals, even a few hundred kilometers away. Beds in the ICU were to be reserved for Covid-19 patients who required invasive ventilation while in many wards areas were set up to ensure non-invasive ventilation.
This winter (2021-22) fewer Covid-19 patients require hospitalization in intensive care, the success of the vaccination programme is likely to be responsible for patients being less ill when infected with Covid-19 and therefore less likely to require admission to intensive care, Now the pressure on the beds is having a greater impact on the ward than resuscitation. Despite this, the pressure on intensive areas is always high, for example, all people with medium/severe symptoms of COVID access health facilities through the First Aid Services, this situation leads to a slowdown of all activities, from triage to evaluation to diagnostics. The Extra-Hospital Emergency Systems are slowed by the long wait at the doors of the Emergency Room with COVID patients or looking for a suitable bed in other hospital facilities. The issue in television to label people in hospital as hospitalized with COVID or Covid care little to those who provide assistance in health facilities since, the reorganization of services,human and intangible resources create the same workload whether people have a serious illness from SARS-CoV2 or are hospitalized for other diseases. In this reorganization the contract renewal of nurses is inserted, these events are for a long time complex and strategically delicate but in the last days they have touched peaks of remarkable paroxysm. Career paths, issues related to the new area reserved for highly qualified personnel, the real financing of professional assignments, the overcoming of the approach merely aimed at compensating the professional with financial treatment, the question of the liberal profession,

All seem to be aspects that the contract renewal will have to deepen, but the closure seems still far away. Nurses are not only asking for economic recognition, they are asking for recognition of the real professionalism that is measured even by the right consideration for a profession that can not be recognized only through a performance (We need nurses to swab, administer vaccines. The COVID has emphasized that the assistance to the person in vital criticality must have a connotation of globality and continuity, it is necessary to rethink to the optical of the area rather than that of the single operating unit. Prolonged isolation, at home and in hospital, has increased the level of importance that interpersonal and social relationships have acquired. Living in this new reality, and being able to interpret and adapt structures and relationships to the new society that is being created, is an irreplaceable and indispensable task, nurses are there, there have always been, have always been appreciated. Now they must be repaid for their efforts.